^ 

TV 


i£ft*" 


**£s.A 


^wS-    - 


W$fe$> 

*/&£;-.  A  /)*&«£ 


rwAis 


MMI^^JiA 


HENRY    JAMES 


TALES  OF  THREE  CITIES 


BOSTON 

JAMES  R.  OSGOOD   AND  COMPANY 
1884 


Copyright,  1883  and  1884, 
BY  HENRY  JAMES. 

All  rights  reserved. 


mnifacrsttg 
JOHN  WILSON  AND  SON,  CAMBRIDGE. 


THE    IMPRESSIONS    OF   A    COUSIN. 


THE 

IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN. 
PART  I. 

NEW  YORK,  April  3,  1873.  There  are  moments 
when  I  feel  that  she  has  asked  too  much  of  me  — 
especially  since  our  arrival  in  this  country.  These 
three  months  have  not  done  much  toward  making 
me  happy  here.  I  don't  know  what  the  difference  is 
—  or  rather  I  do;  and  I  say  this  only  because  it 's  less 
trouble.  It  is  no  trouble,  however,  to  say  that  I  like 
New  York  less  than  Eome :  that,  after  all,  is  the  differ- 
ence. And  then  there 's  nothing  to  sketch !  For  ten 
years  I  have  been  sketching,  and  I  really  believe  I  do 
it  very  well.  But  how  can  I  sketch  Fifty-third  Street  ? 
There  are  times  when  I  even  say  to  myself,  How  can 
I  even  endure  Fifty-third  Street  ?  When  I  turn  into 
it  from  the  Fifth  Avenue  the  vista  seems  too  hideous  : 
the  narrow,  impersonal  houses,  with  the  dry,  hard  tone 
of  their  brown-stone,  a  surface  as  uninteresting  as  that 
of  sand-paper;  their  steep,  stiff  stoops,  giving  you 
such  a  climb  to  the  door;  their  lumpish  balustrades, 
porticoes,  and  cornices,  turned  out  by  the  hundred  and 


4  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

adorned  with  heavy  excrescences  —  such  an  eruption 
of  ornament  and  such  a  poverty  of  effect !  I  suppose 
my  superior  tone  would  seem  very  pretentious  if  any- 
body were  to  read  this  shameless  record  of  personal 
emotion ;  and  I  should  be  asked  why  an  expensive  up- 
town residence  is  not  as  good  as  a  slimy  Italian  pa- 
lazzo.  My  answer,  of  course,  is  that  I  can  sketch  the 
palazzo  and  can  do  nothing  with  the  up-town  resi- 
dence. I  can  live  in  it,  of  course,  and  be  very  grate- 
ful for  the  shelter ;  but  that  does  n't  count.  Putting 
aside  that  odious  fashion  of  popping  into  the  "  par- 
lors "  as  soon  as  you  cross  the  threshold  —  no  in- 
terval, no  approach  —  these  places  are  wonderfully 
comfortable.  This  one  of  Eunice's  is  perfectly  ar- 
ranged; and  we  have  so  much  space  that  she  has 
given  me  a  sitting-room  of  my  own  —  an  immense 
luxury.  Her  kindness,  her  affection,  are  the  most 
charming,  delicate,  natural  thing  I  ever  conceived. 
I  don't  know  what  can  have  put  it  into  her  head  to 
like  me  so  much ;  I  suppose  I  should  say  into  her 
heart,  only  I  don't  like  to  write  about  Eunice's  heart 
—  that  tender,  shrinking,  shade-loving,  and  above  all 
fresh  and  youthful,  organ.  There  is  a  certain  self- 
complacency,  perhaps,  in  my  assuming  that  her  gen- 
erosity is  mere  affection;  for  her  conscience  is  so 
inordinately  developed  that  she  attaches  the  idea  of 
duty  to  eveiything  —  even  to  her  relations  to  a  poor, 
plain,  unloved  and  unlovable  third-cousin.  Whether 
she  is  fond  of  me  or  not,  she  thinks  it  right  to  be 
fond  of  me ;  and  the  effort  of  her  life  is  to  do  what 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  5 

is  right.  In  matters  of  duty,  in  short,  she  is  a  real 
little  artist;  and  her  masterpiece  (in  that  way)  is 
coming  back  here  to  live.  She  can't  like  it ;  her 
tastes  are  not  here.  If  she  did  like  it,  1  am  sure  she 
would  never  have  invented  such  a  phrase  as  the  one 
of  which  she  delivered  herself  the  other  day,  —  "I 
think  one's  life  has  more  dignity  in  one's  own  coun- 
try." That 's  a  phrase  made  up  after  the  fact.  No 
one  ever  gave  up  living  in  Europe  because  there  is  a 
want  of  dignity  in  it.  Poor  Eunice  talks  of  "  one's 
own  country  "  as  if  she  kept  the  United  States  in  the 
back-parlor.  I  have  yet  to  perceive  the  dignity  of 
living  in  Fifty-third  Street.  This,  I  suppose,  is  very 
treasonable ;  but  a  woman  is  n't  obliged  to  be  patri- 
otic. I  believe  I  should  be  a  good  patriot  if  I  could 
sketch  my  native  town.  But  I  can't  make  a  picture 
of  the  brown-stone  stoops  in  the  Fifth  Avenue,  or 
the  platform  of  the  elevated  railway  in  the  Sixth. 
Eunice  has  suggested  to  me  that  I  might  find  some 
subjects  in  the  Park,  and  I  have  been  there  to  look 
for  them.  But  somehow  the  blistered  sentiers  of  as- 
phalt, the  rock-work  caverns,  the  huge  iron  bridges 
spanning  little  muddy  lakes,  the  whole  crowded, 
cockneyfied  place,  making  up  so  many  faces  to  look 
pretty,  don't  appeal  to  me  —  have  n't,  from  beginning 
to  end,  a  discoverable  "  bit."  Besides,  it 's  too  cold 
to  sit  on  a  campstool  under  this  clean-swept  sky, 
whose  depths  of  blue  air  do  very  well,  doubtless,  for 
the  floor  of  heaven,  but  are  quite  too  far  away  for  the 
ceiling  of  earth.  The  sky  over  here  seems  part  of 


6  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

the  world  at  large ;  in  Europe  it 's  part  of  the  par- 
ticular place.  In  summer,  I  dare  say,  it  will  be  bet- 
ter ;  and  it  will  go  hard  with  me  if  I  don't  find  some- 
where some  leafy  lane,  some  cottage-roof,  something 
in  some  degree  mossy  or  mellow.  Nature  here,  of 
course,  is  very  fine,  though  I  am  afraid  only  in  large 
pieces ;  and  with  my  little  yard-measure  (it  used  to 
serve  for  the  Eoman  Campagna ! )  I  don't  know  what 
I  shall  be  able  to  do.  I  must  try  to  rise  to  the  occa- 
sion. 

The  Hudson  is  beautiful ;  I  remember  that  well 
enough ;  and  Eunice  tells  me  that  when  we  are  in 
villeggiatura  we  shall  be  close  to  the  loveliest  part 
of  it.  Her  cottage  or  villa,  or  whatever  they  call 
it  (Mrs.  Ermine,  by  the  way,  always  speaks  of  it  as 
a  "country-seat,")  is  more  or  less  opposite  to  West 
Point,  where  it  makes  one  of  its  grandest  sweeps. 
Unfortunately,  it  has  been  let  these  three  years  that 
she  has  been  abroad,  and  will  not  be  vacant  till  the 
first  of  June.  Mr.  Caliph,  her  trustee,  took  upon 
himself  to  do  that;  very  impertinently,  I  think,  for 
certainly  if  I  had  Eunice's  fortune  I  shouldn't  let 
my  houses  —  I  mean,  of  course,  those  that  are  so  per- 
sonal. Least  of  all  should  I  let  my  "  country-seat." 
It 's  bad  enough  for  people  to  appropriate  one's  sofas 
and  tables,  without  appropriating  one's  flowers  and 
trees  and  even  one's  views.  There  is  nothing  so 
personal  as  one's  horizon,  —  the  horizon  that  one 
commands,  whatever  it  is,  from  one's  window.  No- 
body else  has  just  that  one.  Mr.  Caliph,  by  the 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  1 

way,  is  apparently  a  person  of  the  incalculable,  irre- 
sponsible sort  It  would  have  been  natural  to  sup- 
pose that  having  the  greater  part  of  my  cousin's 
property  in  his  care,  he  would  be  in  New  York  to 
receive  her  at  the  end  of  a  long  absence  and  a  bois- 
terous voyage.  Common  civility  would  have  sug- 
gested that,  especially  as  he  was  an  old  friend,  or 
rather  a  young  friend,  of  both  her  parents.  It  was 
an  odd  thing  to  make  him  sole  trustee ;  but  that  was 
Cousin  Letitia's  doing :  "  she  thought  it  would  be  so 
much  easier  for  Eunice  to  see  only  one  person."  I 
believe  she  had  found  that  effort  the  limit  of  her  own 
energy;  but  she  might  have  known  that  Eunice 
would  have  given  her  best  attention,  every  day,  to 
twenty  men  of  business,  if  such  a  duty  had  been 
presented  to  her.  I  don't  think  poor  Cousin  Letitia 
knew  very  much;  Eunice  speaks  of  her  much  less 
than  she  speaks  of  her  father,  whose  death  would 
have  been  the  greater  sorrow  if  she  dared  to  admit 
to  herself  that  she  preferred  one  of  her  parents  to  the 
other.  The  number  of  things  that  the  poor  girl 
doesn't  dare  to  admit  to  herself!  One  of  them,  I 
am  sure,  is  that  Mr.  Caliph  is  acting  improperly  in 
spending  three  months  in  Washington,  just  at  the 
moment  when  it  would  be  most  convenient  to  her  to 
see  him.  He  has  pressing  business  there,  it  seems 
(he  is  a  good  deal  of  a  politician  —  not  that  I  know 
what  people  do  in  Washington),  and  he  writes  to 
Eunice  every  week  or  two  that  he  will  "  finish  it  up  " 
in  ten  days  more,  and  then  will  be  completely  at  her 


8  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

service ;  but  he  never  finishes  it  up,  —  never  arrives. 
She  has  not  seen  him  for  three  years ;  he  certainly, 
I  think,  ought  to  have  come  out  to  her  in  Europe. 
She  does  n't  know  that,  and  I  have  n't  cared  to  sug- 
gest it,  for  she  wishes  (very  naturally)  to  think  that 
he  is  a  pearl  of  trustees.  Fortunately  he  sends  her 
all  the  money  she  needs ;  and  the  other  day  he  sent 
her  his  brother,  a  rather  agitated  (though  not  in  the 
least  agitating)  youth,  who  presented  himself  about 
lunch-time,  —  Mr.  Caliph  having  (as  he  explained) 
told  him  that  this  was  the  best  hour  to  call.  What 
does  Mr.  Caliph  know  about  it,  by  the  way  ?  It 's 
little  enough  he  has  tried !  Mr.  Adrian  Frank  had 
of  course  nothing  to  say  about  business;  he  only 
came  to  be  agreeable,  and  to  tell  us  that  he  had  just 
seen  his  brother  in  Washington  —  as  if  that  were 
any  comfort !  They  are  brothers  only  in  the  sense 
that  they  are  children  of  the  same  mother;  Mrs. 
Caliph  having  accepted  consolations  in  her  widow- 
hood, and  produced  this  blushing  boy,  who  is  ten 
years  younger  than  the  accomplished  Caliph.  (I  say 
accomplished  Caliph  for  the  phrase.  I  haven't  the 
least  idea  of  his  accomplishments.  Somehow,  a  man 
with  that  name  ought  to  have  a  good  many.)  Mr. 
Frank,  the  second  husband,  is  dead  as  well  as  herself, 
and  the  young  man  has  a  very  good  fortune.  He 
is  shy  and  simple,  colors  immensely  and  becomes 
alarmed  at  his  own  silences ;  but  is  tall  and  straight 
and  clear-eyed,  and  is,  I  imagine,  a  very  estimable 
youth.  Eunice  says  that  he  is  as  different  as  pos- 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  9 

sible  from  his  step-brother ;  so  that  perhaps,  though 
she  doesn't  mean  it  in  that  way,  his  step-brother 
is  not  estimable.  I  shall  judge  of  that  for  myself,  if 
he  ever  gives  me  a  chance. 

Young  Frank,  at  any  rate,  is  a  gentleman,  and  in 
spite  of  his  blushes  has  seen  a  great  deal  of  the  world. 
Perhaps  that  is  what  he  is  blushing  for :  there  are  so 
many  things  we  have  no  reason  to  be  proud  of.  He 
stayed  to  lunch,  and  talked  a  little  about  the  far  East, 

—  Babylon,  Palmyra,  Ispahan,  and  that  sort  of  thing 

—  from  which  he  is  lately  returned.     He  also  is  a 
sketcher,  though    evidently  he   does  n't  show.      He 
asked  to  see  my  things,  however ;  and  I  produced  a 
few  old  water-colors,  of  other  days  and  other  climes, 
which  I  have  luckily  brought  to  America  —  produced 
them  with  my  usual  cairn  assurance.     It  was  clear 
he  thought  me  very  clever ;  so  I  suspect  that  in  not 
showing  he  himself  is  rather  wise.      When  I  said 
there  was  nothing  here  to  sketch,  that  rectangular 
towns  won't  do,  etc.,  he  asked  me  why  I  did  n't  try 
people.     What  people  ?  the  people  in  the  Fifth  Ave- 
nue ?    They  are  even  less  pictorial  than  their  houses. 
I   don't  perceive  that  those  in  the  Sixth  are  any 
better,  or  those  in  the  Fourth  and  Third,  or  in  the 
Seventh  and  Eighth.     Good  heavens!   what   a  no- 
menclature '     The    city  of  New  York  is  like  a  tall 
sum  in  addition,  and  the  streets  are  like  columns  of 
figures.    What  a  place  for  me  to  live,  who  hate  arith- 
metic !     I  have  tried  Mrs.  Ermine,  but  that  is  only 
because  she  asked  me  to :  Mrs.  Ermine  asks  for  what- 


10  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

ever  she  wants.  I  don't  think  she  cares  for  it  much, 
for  though  it 's  bad,  it 's  not  bad  enough  to  please  her. 
I  thought  she  would  be  rather  easy  to  do,  as  her 
countenance  is  made  up  largely  of  negatives  —  no 
color,  no  form,  no  intelligence ;  I  should  simply  have 
to  leave  a  sort  of  brilliant  blank.  I  found,  however, 
there  was  difficulty  in  representing  an  expression 
which  consisted  so  completely  of  the  absence  of  that 
article.  With  her  large,  fair,  featureless  face,  unillu- 
mined  by  a  ray  of  meaning,  she  makes  the  most  inco- 
herent, the  most  unexpected,  remarks.  She  asked 
Eunice,  the  other  day,  whether  she  should  not  bring 
a  few  gentlemen  to  see  her  —  she  seemed  to  know  so 
few,  to  be  so  lonely.  Then  when  Eunice  thanked 
her,  and  said  she  need  n't  take  that  trouble :  she  was 
not  lonely,  and  in  any  case  did  not  desire  her  solitude 
to  be  peopled  in  that  manner, —  Mrs.  Ermine  declared 
blandly  that  it  was  all  right,  but  that  she  supposed 
this  was  the  great  advantage  of  being  an  orphan,  that 
you  might  have  gentlemen  brought  to  see  you.  "  I 
don't  like  being  an  orphan,  even  for  that,"  said  Eu- 
nice ;  who  indeed  does  not  like  it  at  all,  though  she 
will  be  twenty-one  next  month,  and  has  had  several 
years  to  get  used  to  it.  Mrs.  Ermine  is  very  vulgar, 
yet  she  thinks  she  has  high  distinction.  I  am  very 
glad  our  cousinship  is  not  on  the  same  side.  Except 
that  she  is  an  idiot  and  a  bore,  however,  I  think  there 
is  no  harm  in  her.  Her  time  is  spent  in  contemplat- 
ing the  surface  of  things,  —  and  for  that  I  don't  blame 
her,  for  I  myself  am  very  fond  of  the  surface.  But 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  11 

she  does  n't  see  what  she  looks  at,  and  in  short  is  very 
tiresome.  That  is  one  of  the  things  poor  Eunice 
won't  admit  to  herself,  —  that  Lizzie  Ermine  will  end 
by  boring  us  to  death.  Now  that  both  her  daughters 
are  married,  she  has  her  time  quite  on  her  hands ;  for 
the  sons-in-law,  I  am  sure,  can't  encourage  her  visits. 
She  may,  however,  contrive  to  be  with  them  as  well 
as  here,  for,  as  a  poor  young  husband  once  said 
to  me,  a  lelle-mere,  after  marriage,  is  as  inevitable 
as  stickiness  after  eating  honey.  A  fool  can  do 
plenty  of  harm  without  deep  intentions.  After  all, 
intentions  fail ;  and  what  you  know  an  accident  by  is 
that  it  does  n't.  Mrs.  Ermine  does  n't  like  me ;  she 
thinks  she  ought  to  be  in  my  shoes  —  that  when 
Eunice  lost  her  old  governess,  who  had  remained  with 
her  as  "  companion,"  she  ought,  instead  of  picking  me 
up  in  Home,  to  have  come  home  and  thrown  herself 
upon  some  form  of  kinship  more  cushiony.  She  is 
jealous  of  me,  and  vexed  that  I  don't  give  her  more 
opportunities ;  for  I  know  she  has  made  up  her  mind 
that  I  ought  to  be  a  Bohemian  :  in  that  case  she  could 
persuade  Eunice  that  I  am  a  very  unfit  sort  of  person. 
I  am  single,  not  young,  not  pretty,  not  well  off,  and 
not  very  desirous  to  please ;  I  carry  a  palette  on  rny 
thumb,  and  very  often  have  stains  on  my  apron  — 
though  except  for  those  stains  I  pretend  to  be  im- 
maculately neat.  What  right  have  I  not  to  be  a 
Bohemian,  and  not  to  teach  Eunice  to  make  cigar- 
ettes ?  I  am  convinced  Mrs.  Ermine  is  disappointed 

that  I  don't  smoke.     Perhaps,  after  all,  she  is  right, 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


12  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

and  that  I  am  too  much  a  creature  of  habits,  of  rules. 
A  few  people  have  been  good  enough  to  call  me  an 
artist ;  but  I  am  not.  I  am  only,  in  a  small  way,  a 
worker.  I  walk  too  straight;  it's  ten  years  since  any 
one  asked  me  to  dance  !  I  wish  I  could  oblige  you, 
Mrs.  Ermine,  by  dipping  into  Bohemia  once  in  a 
while.  But  one  can't  have  the  defects  of  the  qualities 
one  does  n't  possess.  I  am  not  an  artist,  I  am  too 
much  of  a  critic.  I  suppose  a  she-critic  is  a  kind  of 
monster ;  women  should  only  be  criticised.  That 's 
why  I  keep  it  all  to  myself — myself  being  this  little 
book.  I  grew  tired  of  myself  some  months  ago,  and 
locked  myself  up  in  a  desk.  It  was  a  kind  of  pun- 
ishment, but  it  was  also  a  great  rest,  to  stop  judging, 
to  stop  caring,  for  a  while.  Now  that  I  have  come 
out,  I  suppose  I  ought  to  take  a  vow  not  to  be  ill- 
natured. 

As  I  read  over  what  I  have  written  here,  I  wonder 
whether  it  was  worth  while  to  have  reopened  my 
journal.  Still,  why  not  have  the  benefit  of  being 
thought  disagreeable,  — the  luxury  of  recorded  obser- 
vation ?  If  one  is  poor,  plain,  proud— and  in  this 
very  private  place  I  may  add,  clever  —  there  are  cer- 
tain necessary  revenges ! 

April  10.  Adrian  Frank  has  been  here  again, 
and  we  rather  like  him.  (That  will  do  for  the  first 
note  of  a  more  genial  tone.)  His  eyes  are  very  blue, 
and  his  teeth  very  white — two  things  that  always 
please  me.  He  became  rather  more  communicative, 
and  almost  promised  to  show  me  his  sketches — in 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  13 

spite  of  the  fact  that  he  is  evidently  as  much  as  ever 
struck  with  my  own  ability.  Perhaps  he  has  dis- 
covered that  I  am  trying  to  be  genial !  He  wishes  to 
take  us  to  drive — that  is,  to  take  Eunice;  for  of  course 
I  shall  go  only  for  propriety.  She  does  n't  go  with 
young  men  alone ;  that  element  was  not  included 
in  her  education.  She  said  to  me  yesterday,  "The 
only  man  I  shall  drive  alone  with  will  be  the  one  I 
marry."  She  talks  so  little  about  marrying,  that  this 
made  an  impression  on  me.  That  subject  is  supposed 
to  be  a  girl's  inevitable  topic;  but  no  young  women 
could  occupy  themselves  with  it  less  than  she  and  I 
do.  I  think  I  may  say  that  we  never  mention  it  at 
all.  I  suppose  that  if  a  man  were  to  read  this,  he 
would  be  greatly  surprised  and  not  particularly  edified. 
As  there  is  no  danger  of  any  man's  reading  it,  I  may 
add  that  I  always  take  tacitly  for  granted  that  Eunice 
will  marry.  She  does  n't  in  the  least  pretend  that  she 
won't;  and  if  I  am  not  mistaken,  she  is  capable  of  con- 
jugal affection.  The  longer  I  live  with  her,  the  more 
I  see  that  she  is  a  dear  girl.  Now  that  I  know  her 
better,  I  perceive  that  she  is  perfectly  natural.  I 
used  to  think  that  she  tried  too  much  —  that  she 
watched  herself,  perhaps,  with  a  little  secret  admira- 
tion. But  that  was  because  I  could  n't  conceive  of  a 
girl's  motives  being  so  simple.  She  only  wants  not 
to  suffer  —  she  is  immensely  afraid  of  that.  There- 
fore, she  wishes  to  be  universally  tender  —  to  mitigate 
the  general  sum  of  suffering,  in  the  hope  that  she  her- 
self may  come  off  easily.  Poor  thing !  sho  does  n't 


14  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

know  that  we  can  diminish  the  amount  of  suffering 

o 

for  others  only  by  taking  to  ourselves  a  part  of  their 
share.  The  amount  of  that  commodity  in  the  world 
is  always  the  same ;  it  is  only  the  distribution  that 
varies.  We  all  try  to  dodge  our  portion ;  and  some  of 
us  succeed.  I  find  the  best  way  is  not  to  think  about 
it,  and  to  make  little  water-colors.  Eunice  thinks 
that  the  best  way  is  to  be  very  generous,  to  condemn 
no  one  unheard. 

A  great  many  things  happen  that  I  don't  men- 
tion here;  incidents  of  social  life,  I  believe  they 
call  them.  People  come  to  see  us,  and  sometimes 
they  invite  us  to  dinner.  We  go  to  certain  concerts, 
many  of  which  are  very  good.  We  take  a  walk 
every  day;  and  I  read  to  Eunice,  and  she  plays  to  me. 
Mrs.  Ermine  makes  her  appearance  several  times  a 
week,  and  gives  us  the  news  of  the  town — a  great 
deal  more  of  it  than  we  have  any  use  for.  She  thinks 
we  live  in  a  hole ;  and  she  has  more  than  once  ex- 
pressed her  conviction  that  I  can  do  nothing  socially 
for  Eunice.  As  to  that,  she  is  perfectly  right ;  I  am 
aware  of  my  social  insignificance.  But  I  am  equally 
aware  that  my  cousin  has  no  need  of  being  pushed.  I 
know  little  of  the  people  and  things  of  this  place ;  but 
I  know  enough  to  see  that  whatever  they  are,  the  best 
of  them  are  at  her  service.  Mrs.  Ermine  thinks  it  a 
great  pity  that  Eunice  should  have  come  too  late  in 
the  season  to  "  go  out "  with  her  ;  for  after  this,  there 
are  few  entertainments  at  which  my  protecting  pres- 
ence is  not  sufficient.  Besides, Eunice  isn't  eager;  I 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  15 

often  wonder  at  her  indifference.  She  never  thinks 
of  the  dances  she  has  missed,  nor  asks  about  those  at 
which  she  still  may  figure.  She  is  n't  sad,  and  it 
doesn't  amount  to  melancholy;  but  she  certainly 
is  rather  detached.  She  likes  to  read,  to  talk  with  me, 
to  make  music,  and  to  dine  out  when  she  supposes 
there  will  be  "real  conversation."  She  is  extremely 
fond  of  real  conversation;  and  we  natter  ourselves 
that  a  good  deal  of  it  takes  place  between  us.  We 
talk  about  life  and  religion  and  art  and  George  Eliot ; 
all  that,  I  hope,  is  sufficiently  real  Eunice  under- 
stands everything,  and  has  a  great  many  opinions;  she 
is  quite  the  modern  young  woman,  though  she  has  n't 
modern  manners.  But  all  this  does  n't  explain  to  me 
why,  as  Mrs.  Ermine  says,  she  should  wish  to  be  so 
dreadfully  quiet.  That  lady's  suspicion  to  the  contrary 
notwithstanding,  it  is  not  I  who  make  her  so.  I 
would  go  with  her  to  a  party  every  night  if  she  should 
wish  it,  and  send  out  cards  to  proclaim  that  we  "re- 
ceive." But  her  ambitions  are  not  those  of  the  usual 
girl ;  or  at  any  rate,  if  she  is  waiting  for  what  the 
usual  girl  waits  for,  she  is  waiting  very  patiently.  As 
I  say,  I  can't  quite  make  out  the  secret  of  her  patience. 
However,  it  is  not  necessary  I  should  ;  it  was  no  part 
of  the  bargain  on  which  I  came  to  her  that  we  were 
to  conceal  nothing  from  each  other.  I  conceal  a  great 
deal  from  Eunice  ;  at  least  I  hope  I  do  :  for  instance, 
how  fearfully  I  am  bored.  I  think  I  am  as  patient 
as  she  ;  but  then  I  have  certain  things  to  help  me — 
my  age,  my  resignation,  my  ability,  and,  I  suppose  I 


16  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

may  add,  iny  conceit.  Mrs.  Ermine  does  n't  bring  the 
young  men,  but  she  talks  about  them,  and  calls  them 
Harry  and  Freddy.  She  wants  Eunice  to  marry, 
though  I  don't  see  what  she  is  to  gain  by  it.  It  is 
apparently  a  disinterested  love  of  matrimony,  —  or 
rather,  I  should  say,  a  love  of  weddings.  She  lives 
in  a  world  of  "  engagements,"  and  announces  a  new 
one  every  time  she  comes  in.  I  never  heard  of  so 
much  marrying  in  all  my  life  before.  Mrs.  Ermine 
is  dying  to  be  able  to  tell  people  that  Eunice  is  en- 
gaged :  that  distinction  should  not  be  wanting  to  a 
cousin  of  hers.  Whoever  marries  her,  by  the  way, 
will  come  into  a  very  good  fortune.  Almost  for  the 
first  time,  three  days  ago,  she  told  me  about  her 
affairs. 

She  knows  less  about  them  than  she  believes, — I 
could  see  that;  but  she  knows  the  great  matter; 
which  is  that  in  the  course  of  her  twenty-first  year, 
by  the  terms  of  her  mother's  will,  she  becomes  mis- 
tress of  her  property,  of  which  for  the  last  seven  years 
Mr.  Caliph  has  been  sole  trustee.  On  that  day  Mr. 
Caliph  is  to  make  over  to  her  three  hundred  thousand 
dollars,  which  he  has  been  nursing  and  keeping  safe. 
So  much  on  every  occasion  seems  to  be  expected  of 
this  wonderful  man!  I  call  him  so  because  I  think  it 
was  wonderful  of  him  to  have  been  appointed  sole  de- 
positary of  the  property  of  an  orphan  by  a  very  anxious, 
scrupulous,  affectionate  mother,  whose  one  desire,  when 
she  made  her  will,  was  to  prepare  for  her  child  a  fruit- 
ful majority,  and  whose  acquaintance  with  him  had 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  17' 

not  been  of  many  years,  though  her  esteem  for  him 
was  great.  He  had  been  a  friend  —  a  very  good  friend 
— of  her  husband,  who,  as  he  neared  his  end,  asked 
him  to  look  after  his  widow.  Eunice's  father  did  n't 
however  make  him  trustee  of  his  little  estate;  he  put 
that  into  other  hands,  and  Eunice  has  a  very  good  ac- 
count of  it.  It  amounts,  unfortunately,  but  to  some 
fifty  thousand  dollars.  Her  mother's  proceedings 
with  regard  to  Mr.  Caliph  were  very  feminine  —  so  I 
may  express  myself  in  the  privacy  of  these  pages. 
But  I  believe  all  women  are  very  feminine  in  their 
relations  with  Mr.  Caliph.  "  Haroun-al-Baschid  "  I 
call  him  to  Eunice ;  and  I  suppose  he  expects  to  find 
us  in  a  state  of  Oriental  prostration.  She  says,  how- 
ever, that  he  is  not  the  least  of  a  Turk,  and  that  nothing 
could  be  kinder  or  more  considerate  than  he  was  three 
years  ago,  before  she  went  to  Europe.  He  was  con- 
stantly with  her  at  that  time,  for  many  months;  and 
his  attentions  have  evidently  made  a  great  impression 
on  her.  That  sort  of  thing  naturally  would,  on  a  girl 
of  seventeen ;  and  I  have  told  her  she  must  be  pre- 
pared to  think  him  much  less  brilliant  a  personage 
to-day.  I  don't  know  what  he  will  think  of  some  of 
her  plans  of  expenditure, — laying  out  an  Italian 
garden  at  the  house  on  the  river,  founding  a  cot  at 
the  children's  hospital,  erecting  a  music-room  in  the 
rear  of  this  house.  Next  winter  Eunice  proposes  to 
receive  ;  but  she  wishes  to  have  an  originality,  in  the 
shape  of  really  good  music.  She  will  evidently  be 
rather  extravagant,  at  least  at  first.  Mr.  Caliph  of 

2 


18  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

course  will  have  no  more  authority ;  still,  he  may  ad- 
vise her  as  a  friend. 

April  23.  This  afternoon,  while  Eunice  was  out, 
Mr.  Frank  made  his  appearance,  having  had  the  civ- 
ility, as  I  afterwards  learned,  to  ask  for  me,  in  spite 
of  the  absence  of  the  padronina.  I  told  him  she  was 
at  Mrs.  Ermine's,  and  that  Mrs.  Ermine  was  her 
cousin. 

"  Then  I  can  say  what  I  should  not  be  able  to  say 
if  she  were  here,"  he  said,  smiling  that  singular  smile 
which  has  the  effect  of  showing  his  teeth  and  draw- 
ing the  lids  of  his  eyes  together.  If  he  were  a  young 
countryman,  one  would  call  it  a  grin.  It  is  not  ex- 
actly a  grin,  but  it  is  very  simple. 

"And  what  may  that  be  ? "  I  asked,  with  encourage- 
ment. 

He  hesitated  a  little,  while  I  admired  his  teeth, 
which  I  am  sure  he  has  no  wish  to  exhibit;  and 
I  expected  something  wonderful.  "  Considering  that 
she  is  fair,  she  is  really  very  pretty,"  he  said  at  last. 

I  was  rather  disappointed,  and  I  went  so  far  as  to 
say  to  him  that  he  might  have  made  that  remark  in 
her  presence. 

This  time  his  blue  eyes  remained  wide  open :  "  So 
you  really  think  so  ? " 

" ' Considering  that  she's  fair/  that  part  of  it,  per- 
haps, might  have  been  omitted ;  but  the  rest  surely 
would  have  pleased  her." 

"  Do  you  really  think  so  ? " 

"  Well,  '  really  very  pretty '  is,  perhaps,  not  quite 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  19 

right ;  it  seems  to  imply  a  kind  of  surprise.  You 
might  have  omitted  the  '  really.' " 

"  You  want  me  to  omit  everything,"  he  said,  laugh- 
ing, as  if  he  thought  me  wonderfully  amusing. 

"  The  gist  of  the  thing  would  remain, '  You  are 
very  pretty ; '  that  would  have  been  unexpected  and 
agreeable." 

"  I  think  you  are  laughing  at  me ! "  cried  poor 
Mr.  Frank,  without  bitterness.  "I  have  no  right 
to  say  that  till  I  know  she  likes  me." 

"  She  does  like  you ;  I  see  no  harm  in  telling  you 
so."  He  seemed  to  me  so  modest,  so  natural,  that  I 
felt  as  free  to  say  this  to  him  as  I  would  have  been 
to  a  good  child  :  more,  indeed,  than  to  a  good  child, 
for  a  child  to  whom  one  would  say  that  would  be 
rather  a  prig;  and  Adrian  Frank  is  not  a  prig.  I 
could  see  that  by  the  way  he  answered;  it  was 
rather  odd. 

"  It  will  please  my  brother  to  know  that ! " 

"  Does  he  take  such  an  interest  in  the  impressions 
you  make  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes ;  he  wants  me  to  appear  well."  This  was 
said  with  the  most  touching  innocence;  it  was  a 
complete  confession  of  inferiority.  It  was,  perhaps, 
the  tone  that  made  it  so  ;  at  any  rate,  Adrian  Frank 
has  renounced  the  hope  of  ever  appearing  as  well  as 
his  brother.  I  wonder  if  a  man  must  be  really  in- 
ferior, to  be  in  such  a  state  of  mind  as  that.  He 
must  at  all  events  be  very  fond  of  his  brother,  and 
even,  I  think,  have  sacrificed  himself  a  good  deal. 


20  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

This  young  man  asked  me  ever  so  many  questions 
about  my  cousin;  frankly,  simply,  as  if  when  one 
wanted  to  know,  it  was  perfectly  natural  to  ask.  So 
it  is,  I  suppose  ;  but  why  should  he  want  to  know  ? 
Some  of  his  questions  were  certainly  idle.  What 
can  it  matter  to  him  whether  she  has  one  little  dog 
or  three,  or  whether  she  is  an  admirer  of  the  music 
of  the  future  ?  "  Does  she  go  out  much,  or  does  she 
like  a  quiet  evening  at  home  ? "  "  Does  she  like  living 
in  Europe,  and  what  part  of  Europe  does  she  prefer  ? " 
"  Has  she  many  relatives  in  New  York,  and  does  she 
see  a  great  deal  of  them  ? "  On  all  these  points  I  was 
obliged  to  give  Mr.  Frank  a  certain  satisfaction ;  and 
after  that,  I  thought  I  had  a  right  to  ask  why  he 
wanted  to  know.  He  was  evidently  surprised  at 
being  challenged,  blushed  a  good  deal,  and  made  me 
feel  for  a  moment  as  if  I  had  asked  a  vulgar  question. 
I  saw  he  had  no  particular  reason ;  he  only  wanted 
to  be  civil,  and  that  is  the  way  best  known  to  him  of 
expressing  an  interest.  He  was  confused ;  but  he  was 
not  so  confused  that  he  took  his  departure.  He  sat 
half  an  hour  longer,  and  let  me  make  up  to  him  by 
talking  very  agreeably  for  the  shock  I  had  admin- 
istered. I  may  mention  here  —  for  I  like  to  see  it 
in  black  and  white  —  that  I  can  talk  very  agreeably. 
He  listened  with  the  most  flattering  attention,  show- 
ing me  his  blue  eyes  and  his  white  teeth  in  alterna- 
tion, and  laughing  largely,  as  if  I  had  a  command 
of  the  comical,  —  I  am  not  conscious  of  that.  At 
last,  after  I  had  paused  a  little,  he  said  to  me,  apropos 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  21 

of  nothing :  "  Do  you  think  the  realistic  school  are 
— a  —  to  be  admired?"  Then  I  saw  that  he  had 
already  forgotten  my  earlier  check,  —  such  was  the 
effect  of  my  geniality,  —  and  that  he  would  ask  me  as 
many  questions  about  myself  as  I  would  let  him.  I 
answered  him  freely,  but  I  answered  him  as  I  chose. 
There  are  certain  things  about  myself  I  never  shall 
tell,  and  the  simplest  way  not  to  tell  is  to  say  the 
contrary.  If  people  are  indiscreet,  they  must  take 
the  consequences.  I  declared  that  I  held  the  realistic 
school  in  horror ;  that  I  found  New  York  the  most 
interesting,  the  most  sympathetic  of  cities  ;  and  that 
I  thought  the  American  girl  the  finest  result  of  civ- 
ilization. I  am  sure  I  convinced  him  that  I  am  a 
most  remarkable  woman.  He  went  away  before 
Eunice  returned.  He  is  a  charming  creature  —  a 
kind  of  Yankee  Donatello.  If  I  could  only  be  his 
Miriam,  the  situation  would  be  almost  complete, 
for  Eunice  is  an  excellent  Hilda. 

April  26.  Mrs.  Ermine  was  in  great  force  to-day ; 
she  described  all  the  fine  things  Eunice  can  do  when 
she  gets  her  money  into  her  own  hands.  A  set  of 
Mechlin  lace,  a  rivibre  of  diamonds  which  she  saw  the 
other  day  at  Tiffany's,  a  set  of  Russian  sables  that  she 
knows  of  somewhere  else,  a  little  English  phaeton  with 
a  pair  of  ponies  and  a  tiger,  a  family  of  pugs  to  waddle 
about  in  the  drawing-room  —  all  these  luxuries  Mrs. 
Ermine  declares  indispensable.  "I  should  like  to 
know  that  you  have  them  —  it  would  do  me  real 
good,"  she  said  to  Eunice.  "  I  like  to  see  people  with 


22  TEE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

handsome  things.  It  would  give  nie  more  pleasure  to 
know  you  have  that  set  of  Mechlin  than  to  have  it 
myself.  I  can't  help  that  —  it 's  the  way  I  am  made. 
If  other  people  have  handsome  things  I  see  them 
more;  and  then  I  do  want  the  good  of  others  —  I 
don't  care  if  you  think  me  vain  for  saying  so.  I 
shan't  be  happy  till  I  see  you  in  an  English  phaeton. 
The  groom  ought  n't  to  be  more  than  three  foot  six. 
I  think  you  ought  to  show  for  what  you  are." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  for  what  I  am  ? "  Eunice 
asked. 

"  Well,  for  a  charming  girl,  with  a  very  handsome 
fortune." 

"  I  shall  never  show  any  more  than  I  do  now." 

"I  will  tell  you  what  you  do  —  you  show  Miss 
Condit."  And  Mrs.  Ermine  presented  me  her  large, 
foolish  face.  "  If  you  don't  look  out,  she  '11  do  you 
up  in  Morris  papers,  and  then  all  the  Mechlin  lace  in 
the  world  won't  matter ! " 

"  I  don't  follow  you  at  all  —  I  never  follow  you,"  I 
said,  wishing  I  could  have  sketched  her  just  as  she 
sat  there.  She  was  quite  grotesque. 

"  I  would  rather  go  without  you,"  she  repeated. 

"I  think  that  after  I  come  into  my  property  I 
shall  do  just  as  I  do  now,"  said  Eunice.  "  After  all, 
where  will  the  difference  be  ?  I  have  to-day  every- 
thing I  shall  ever  have.  It 's  more  than  enough." 

"You  won't  have  to  ask  Mr.  Caliph  for  every- 
thing." 

"  I  ask  him  for  nothing  now." 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  23 

"Well,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Ermine,  "you  don't 
deserve  to  be  rich." 

"  I  am  not  rich,"  Eunice  remarked. 

"  Ah,  well,  if  you  want  a  million  ! " 

"  I  don't  want  anything/'  said  Eunice. 

That's  not  exactly  true.  She  does  want  some- 
thing, but  I  don't  know  what  it  is. 

May  2.  Mr.  Caliph  is  really  very  delightful. 
He  made  his  appearance  to-day  and  carried  every- 
thing before  him.  When  I  say  he  carried  everything, 
I  mean  he  carried  me ;  for  Eunice  had  not  my  pre- 
judices to  get  over.  When  I  said  to  her  after  he  had 
gone,  "  Your  trustee  is  a  very  clever  man,"  she  only 
smiled  a  little,  and  turned  away  in  silence.  I  sup- 
pose she  was  amused  with  the  air  of  importance 
with  which  I  announced  this  discovery.  Eunice  had 
made  it  several  years  ago,  and  could  not  be  excited 
about  it.  I  had  an  idea  that  some  allusion  would  be 
made  to  the  way  he  has  neglected  her  —  some  apol- 
ogy at  least  for  his  long  absence.  But  he  did  some- 
thing better  than  this.  He  made  no  definite  apol- 
ogy ;  he  only  expressed,  in  his  manner,  his  look,  his 
voice,  a  tenderness,  a  kind  of  charming  benevolence, 
which  included  and  exceeded  all  apologies.  He 
looks  rather  tired  and  preoccupied;  he  evidently 
has  a  great  many  irons  of  his  own  in  the  fire,  and 
has  been  thinking  these  last  weeks  of  larger  ques- 
tions than  the  susceptibilities  of  a  little  girl  in  New 
York  who  happened  several  years  ago  to  have  an 
exuberant  mother.  He  is  thoroughly  genial,  and  is 


24  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

the  best  talker  I  have  seen  since  my  return.  A 
totally  different  type  from  the  young  Adrian.  He  is 
not  in  the  least  handsome  —  is,  indeed,  rather  ugly ; 
but  with  a  fine,  expressive,  pictorial  ugliness.  He  is 
forty  years  old,  large  and  stout,  may  even  be  pro- 
nounced fat ;  and  there  is  something  about  him  that 
I  don't  know  how  to  describe  except  by  calling  it  a 
certain  richness.  I  have  seen  Italians  who  have  it 
but  this  is  the  first  American.  He  talks  with  his 
eyes,  as  well  as  with  his  lips,  and  his  features  are 
wonderfully  mobile.  His  smile  is  quick  and  delight- 
ful; his  hands  are  well-shaped,  but  distinctly  fat; 
he  has  a  pale  complexion  and  a  magnificent  brown 
beard  —  the  beard  of  Haroun-al-Easchid.  I  suppose 
I  must  write  it  very  small ;  but  I  have  an  intimate 
conviction  that  he  is  a  Jew,  or  of  Jewish  origin.  I 
see  that  in  his  plump,  white  face,  of  which  the  tone 
would  please  a  painter,  and  which  suggests  fatigue 
but  is  nevertheless  all  alive ;  in  his  remarkable  eye, 
which  is  full  of  old  expressions  —  expressions  which 
linger  there  from  the  past,  even  when  they  are  not 
active  to-day ;  in  his  profile,  in  his  anointed  beard,  in 
the  very  rings  on  his  large  pointed  fingers.  There  is 
not  a  touch  of  all  this  in  his  step-brother;  so  I  sup- 
pose the  Jewish  blood  is  inherited  from  his  father. 
I  don't  think  he  looks  like  a  gentleman ;  he  is  some- 
thing apart  from  all  that.  If  he  is  not  a  gentleman, 
he  is  not  in  the  least  a  bourgeois  —  neither  is  he  of 
the  artist  type.  In  short,  as  I  say,  he  is  a  Jew ;  and 
Jews  of  the  upper  class  have  a  style  of  their  own.  He 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  25 

is  very  clever,  and  I  think  genuinely  kind.  Nothing 
could  be  more  charming  than  his  way  of  talking  to 
Eunice  —  a  certain  paternal  interest  mingled  with  an 
air  of  respectful  gallantry  (he  gives  her  good  advice, 
and  at  the  same  time  pays  her  compliments) ;  the 
whole  thing  being  not  in  the  least  overdone.  I 
think  he  found  her  changed  —  "more  of  a  person," 
as  Mrs.  Ermine  says ;  I  even  think  he  was  a  little 
surprised.  She  seems  slightly  afraid  of  him,  which 
rather  surprised  me  —  she  was,  from  her  own  account, 
so  familiar  with  him  of  old.  He  is  decidedly  florid,  and 
was  very  polite  to  me — that  was  a  part  of  the  floridity. 
He  asked  if  we  had  seen  his  step- brother ;  begged  us 
to  be  kind  to  him  and  to  let  him  come  and  see  us 
often.  He  does  n't  know  many  people  in  New  York, 
and  at  that  age  it  is  everything  (I  quote  Mr.  Caliph) 
for  a  young  fellow  to  be  at  his  ease  with  one  or  two 
charming  women.  "Adrian  takes  a  great  deal  of  know- 
ing ;  is  horribly  shy ;  but  is  most  intelligent,  and  has 
one  of  the  sweetest  natures  f  I  'm  very  fond  of  him 
—  he 's  all  I  've  got.  Unfortunately  the  poor  boy  is 
cursed  with  a  competence.  In  this  country  there  is 
nothing  for  such  a  young  fellow  to  do ;  he  hates  busi- 
ness, and  has  absolutely  no  talent  for  it.  I  shall  send 
him  back  here  the  next  time  I  see  him."  Eunice 
made  no  answer  to  this,  and,  in  fact,  had  little  an- 
swer to  make  to  most  of  Mr.  Caliph's  remarks,  only 
sitting  looking  at  the  floor  with  a  smile.  I  thought 
it  proper  therefore  to  reply  that  we  had  found  Mr. 
Frank  very  pleasant,  and  hoped  he  would  soon  come 


26  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

again.  Then  I  mentioned  that  the  other  day  I  had 
had  a  long  visit  from  him  alone ;  we  had  talked  for 
an  hour,  and  become  excellent  friends.  Mr.  Caliph, 
as  I  said  this,  was  leaning  forward  with  his  elbow 
on  his  knee  and  his  hand  uplifted,  grasping  his 
thick  beard.  The  other  hand,  with  the  elbow  out, 
rested  on  the  other  knee ;  his  head  was  turned  to- 
ward me,  askance.  He  looked  at  me  a  moment  with 
his  deep  bright  eye  —  the  eye  of  a  much  older  man 
than  he  ;  he  might  have  been  posing  for  a  water- 
color.  If  I  had  painted  him,  it  would  have  been  in 
a  high-peaked  cap,  and  an  amber-colored  robe,  with  a 
wide  girdle  of  pink  silk  wound  many  times  round 
his  waist,  stuck  full  of  knives  with  jewelled  handles. 
Our  eyes  met,  and  we  sat  there  exchanging  a  glance. 
I  don't  know  whether  he  's  vain,  but  I  think  he  must 
see  I  appreciate  him;  I  am  sure  he  understands 
everything. 

"  I  like  you  when  you  say  that,"  he  remarked  at 
the  end  of  a  minute. 

"  I  'm  glad  to  hear  you  like  me  !  "  This  sounds 
horrid  and  pert  as  I  relate  it. 

"  I  don't  like  every  one,"  said  Mr.  Caliph. 

"  Neither  do  Eunice  and  I ;  do  we,  Eunice  ?  " 

"  I  am  afraid  we  only  try  to,"  she  answered,  smil- 
ing her  most  beautiful  smile. 

"  Try  to  ?  Heaven  forbid  !  I  protest  against  that," 
I  cried.  I  said  to  Mr.  Caliph  that  Eunice  was  too  good. 

"  She  comes  honestly  by  that.  Your  mother  was 
an  angel,  my  child,"  he  said  to  her. 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  27 

Cousin  Letitia  was  not  an  angel,  but  I  have  men- 
tioned that  Mr.  Caliph  is  florid.  "You  used  to  be 
very  good  to  her,"  Eunice  murmured,  raising  her 
eyes  to  him. 

He  had  got  up ;  he  was  standing  there.  He  bent 
his  head,  smiling  like  an  Italian.  "  You  must  be  the 
same,  my  child." 

"  What  can  I  do  ?  "  Eunice  asked. 

"  You  can  believe  in  me  —  you  can  trust  me." 

"  I  do,  Mr.  Caliph.     Try  me  and  see  ! " 

This  was  unexpectedly  gushing,  and  I  instinctively 
turned  away.  Behind  my  back,  I  don't  know  what 
he  did  to  her  —  I  think  it  possible  he  kissed  her. 
When  you  call  a  girl  "  my  child,"  I  suppose  you  may 
kiss  her ;  but  that  may  be  only  my  bold  imagination. 
When  I  turned  round  he  had  taken  up  his  hat  and 
stick,  to  say  nothing  of  buttoning  a  very  tightly-fitting 
coat  round  a  very  spacious  person,  and  was  ready  to 
offer  me  his  hand  in  farewell. 

"  I  am  so  glad  you  are  with  her.  I  am  so  glad  she 
has  a  companion  so  accomplished  —  so  capable." 

"  So  capable  of  what  ? "  I  said,  laughing ;  for  the 
speech  was  absurd,  as  he  knows  nothing  about  my 
accomplishments. 

There  is  nothing  solemn  about  Mr.  Caliph;  but 
he  gave  me  a  look  which  made  it  appear  to  me  that 
my  levity  was  in  bad  taste.  Yes,  humiliating  as  it  is 
to  write  it  here,  I  found  myself  rebuked  by  a  Jew 
witli  fat  hands  !  "  Capable  of  advising  her  well ! "  he 
said,  softly. 


28  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  Ah,  don't  talk  about  advice,"  Eunice  exclaimed. 
"  Advice  always  gives  an  idea  of  trouble*  and  I  am 
very  much  afraid  of  trouble." 

"  You  ought  to  get  married,"  he  said,  with  his 
smile  corning  back  to  him. 

Eunice  colored  and  turned  awray,  and  I  observed 

—  to  say  something  —  that  this  was  just  what  Mrs. 
Ermine  said. 

"  Mrs.  Ermine  ?  ah,  I  hear  she  's  a  charming 
woman  ! "  And  shortly  after  that  he  went  away. 

That  was  almost  the  only  weak  thing  he  said  — 
the  only  thing  for  mere  form,  for  of  course  no  one 
can  really  think  her  charming ;  least  of  all  a  clever 
man  like  that.  I  don't  like  Americans  to  resemble 
Italians,  or  Italians  to  resemble  Americans ;  but 
putting  that  aside,  Mr.  Caliph  is  very  prepossessing. 
He  is  wonderfully  good  company  ;  he  will  spoil  us  for 
other  people.  He  made  no  allusion  to  business, 
and  no  appointment  with  Eunice  for  talking  over  cer- 
tain matters  that  are  pending ;  but  I  thought  of  this 
only  half  an  hour  after  he  had  gone.  I  said  nothing 
to  Eunice  about  it,  for  she  would  have  noticed  the 
omission  herself,  and  that  was  enough.  The  only 
other  point  in  .Mr.  Caliph  that  was  open  to  criticism 
is  his  asking  Eunice  to  believe  in  him  —  to  trust  him. 
Why  shouldn't  she,  pray  ?  If  that  speech  was  curious 

—  and,  strange  to  say,  it  almost  appeared   so  —  it 
was  incredibly  naif.     But  this  quality  is  insupposable 
of  Mr.  Caliph  ;  who  ever  heard  of  a  naif  Jew  ?    After 
he  had  gone  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  to  Eunice, 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  29 

"  By  the  way,  why  did  you  never  mention  that  he  is 
a  Hebrew  ?  That 's  an  important  detail."  But  an 
impulse  that  I  am  not  able  to  define  stopped  me, 
and  now  I  am  glad  I  did  n't  speak.  I  don't  believe 
Eunice  ever  made  the  discovery,  and  I  don't  think 
she  would  like  it  if  she  did  make  it.  That  I  should 
have  done  so  on  the  instant  only  proves  that  I  am  in 
the  habit  of  studying  the  human  profile  ! 

May  9.  Mrs.  Ermine  must  have  discovered  that 
Mr.  Caliph  has  heard  she  is  charming,  for  she  is  per- 
petually coming  in  here  with  the  hope  of  meeting 
him.  She  appears  to  think  that  he  comes  every  day ; 
for  when  she  misses  him,  which  she  has  done  three 
times  (that  is,  she  arrives  just  after  he  goes),  she 
says  that  if  she  does  n't  catch  him  on  the  morrow  she 
will  go  and  call  upon  him.  She  is  capable  of  that,  I 
think ;  and  it  makes  no  difference  that  he  is  the 
busiest  of  men  and  she  the  idlest  of  women.  He  has 
been  here  four  times  since  his  first  call,  and  has  the 
air  of  wishing  to  make  up  for  the  neglect  that  pre- 
ceded it.  His  manner  to  Eunice  is  perfect ;  he  con- 
tinues to  call  her  "my  child,"  but  in  a  superficial, 
impersonal  way,  as  a  Catholic  priest  might  do  it.  He 
tells  us  stories  of  Washington,  describes  the  people 
there,  and  makes  us  wonder  whether  we  should  care 
for  K  Street  and  14J  Street.  As  yet,  to  the  best  of 
my  knowledge,  not  a  word  about  Eunice's  affairs  ;  he 
behaves  as  if  he  had  simply  forgotten  them.  It  was, 
after  all,  not  out  of  place  the  other  day  to  ask  her  to 
"  believe  in  him ;  "  the  faith  would  n't  come  as  a  mat- 


30  THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN. 

ter  of  course.  On  the  other  hand  he  is  so  pleasant 
that  one  would  believe  in  him  just  to  oblige  him. 
He  has  a  great  deal  of  trust-business,  and  a  great 
deal  of  law-business  of  every  kind.  So  at  least  he 
says  ;  we  really  know  very  little  about  him  but  what 
he  tells  us.  When  I  say  "  we,"  of  course  I  speak 
mainly  for  myself,  as  I  am  perpetually  forgetting 
that  he  is  not  so  new  to  Eunice  as  he  is  to  me.  She 
knows  what  she  knows,  but  I  only  know  what  I  see. 
I  have  been  wondering  a  good  deal  what  is  thought 
of  Mr.  Caliph  "  down-town,"  as  they  say  here,  but 
without  much  result,  for  naturally  I  can't  go  down- 
town and  see.  The  appearance  of  the  thing  prevents 
my  asking  questions  about  him  ;  it  would  be  very 
compromising  to  Eunice,  and  make  people  think  that 
she  complains  of  him  —  which  is  so  far  from  being 
the  case.  She  likes  him  just  as  he  is,  and  is  appar- 
ently quite  satisfied.  I  gather,  moreover,  that  he  is 
thought  very  brilliant,  though  a  little  peculiar,  and 
that  he  has  made  a  great  deal  of  money.  He  has  a 
way  of  his  own  of  doing  things,  and  carries  imagina- 
tion and  humor,  and  a  sense  of  the  beautiful,  into 
Wall  Street  and  the  Stock  Exchange.  Mrs.  Ermine 
announced  the  other  day  that  he  is  "  considered  the 
most  fascinating  man  in  New  York ; "  but  that  is  the 
romantic  up-town  view  of  him,  and  not  what  I  want. 
His  brother  has  gone  out  of  town  for  a  few  days,  but 
he  continues  to  recommend  the  young  Adrian  to  our 
hospitality.  There  is  something  really  touching  in 
his  relation  to  that  rather  limited  young  man. 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  31 

May  11.  Mrs.  Ermine  is  in  high  spirits;  she  has 
met  Mr.  Caliph  —  I  don't  know  where  —  and  she 
quite  confirms  the  up-town  view.  She  thinks  him 
the  most  fascinating  man  she  has  ever  seen,  and  she 
wonders  that  we  should  have  said  so  little  about  him. 
He  is  so  handsome,  so  high-bred ;  his  manners  are  so 
perfect ;  he 's  a  regular  old  dear.  I  think,  of  course 
ill-naturedly,  several  degrees  less  well  of  him  since  I 
have  heard  Mrs.  Ermine's  impressions.  He  is  not 
handsome,  he  is  not  high-bred,  and  his  manners  are 
not  perfect.  They  are  original,  and  they  are  expres- 
sive ;  and  if  one  likes  him  there  is  an  interest  in 
looking  for  what  he  will  do  and  say.  But  if  one 
should  happen  to  dislike  him,  one  would  detest  his 
manners  and  think  them  familiar  and  vulgar.  As 
for  breeding,  he  has  about  him,  indeed,  the  marks 
of  antiquity  of  race ;  yet  I  don't  think  Mrs.  Ermine 
would  have  liked  me  to  say,  "  Oh,  yes,  all  Jews 
have  blood ! "  Besides,  I  could  n't  before  Eunice. 
Perhaps  I  consider  Eunice  too  much ;  perhaps  I  am 
betrayed  by  my  old  habit  of  trying  to  see  through 
mill-stones  ;  perhaps  I  interpret  things  too  richly  — 
just  as  (I  know)  when  I  try  to  paint  an  old  wall  I 
attempt  to  put  in  too  much  "  character  ; "  character 
being  in  old  walls,  after  all,  a  finite  quantity.  At 
any  rate  she  seems  to  me  rather  nervous  about  Mr. 
Caliph:  that  appeared  after  a  little  when  Mrs. 
Ermine  came  back  to  the  subject.  She  had  a  great 
deal  to  say  about  the  oddity  of  her  never  having  seen 
him  before,  of  old,  "  for  after  all,"  as  she  remarked, 


32  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"we  move  in  the  same  society  —  he  moves  in  the 
very  best."  She  used  to  hear  Eunice  talk  about  her 
trustee,  but  she  supposed  a  trustee  must  be  some 
horrid  old  man  with  a  lot  of  papers  in  his  hand,  sit- 
ting all  day  in  an  office.  She  never  supposed  he  was 
a  prince  in  disguise.  "  We  've  got  a  trustee  some- 
where, only  I  never  see  him ;  my  husband  does  all 
the  business.  No  wonder  he  keeps  him  out  of  the 
way  if  he  resembles  Mr.  Caliph."  And  then  suddenly 
she  said  to  Eunice,  "My  dear,  why  don't  you  marry 
him  ?  I  should  think  you  would  want  to."  Mrs. 
Ermine  does  n't  look  through  mill-stones ;  she  con- 
tents herself  with  giving  them  a  poke  with  her 
parasol.  Eunice  colored,  and  said  she  had  n't  been 
asked ;  she  was  evidently  not  pleased  with  Mrs. 
Ermine's  joke,  which  was  of  course  as  flat  as  you 
like.  Then  she  added  in  a  moment  —  "I  should  be 
very  sorry  to  marry  Mr.  Caliph,  even  if  he  were  to 
ask  me.  I  like  him,  but  I  don't  like  him  enough  for 
that." 

"  I  should  think  he  would  be  quite  in  your  style, 
— he 's  so  literary.  They  say  he  writes,"  Mrs.  Ermine 
went  on. 

"  Well,  I  don't  write,"  Eunice  answered,  laugh- 
ing. 

"  You  could  if  you  would  try.  I  'm  sure  you  could 
make  a  lovely  book."  Mrs.  Ermine's  amiability  is 
immense. 

" It's  safe  for  you  to  say  that —  you  never  read." 

"  I  have  no  time,"  said  Mrs.  Ermine,  "  but  I  like 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  33 

literary  conversation.     It  saves  time,  when  it  comes 
in  that  way.     Mr.  Caliph  has  ever  so  much." 

"  He  keeps  it  for  you.  With  us  he  is  very  frivo- 
lous," I  ventured  to  observe. 

"  Well,  what  you  call  frivolous !  I  believe  you 
think  the  prayer-book  frivolous." 

"Mr.  Caliph  will  never  marry  any  one,"  Eunice 
said,  after  a  moment.  "  That  I  am  very  sure  of." 

Mrs.  Ermine  stared;  there  never  is  so  little  ex- 
pression in  her  face  as  when  she  is  surprised.  But 
she  soon  recovered  herself.  "  Don't  you  believe  that ! 
He  will  take  some  quiet  little  woman,  after  you  have 
all  given  him  up." 

Eunice  was  sitting  at  the  piano,  but  had  wheeled 
round  on  the  stool  when  her  cousin  came  in.  She 
turned  back  to  it  and  struck  a  few  vague  chords,  as 
if  she  were  feeling  for  something.  "  Please  don't 
speak  that  way ;  I  don't  like  it,"  she  said,  as  she 
went  on  playing. 

"  I  will  speak  any  way  you  like ! "  Mrs.  Ermine 
cried,  with  her  vacant  laugh. 

"  I  think  it  very  low."  For  Eunice  this  was  se- 
vere. "  Girls  are  not  always  thinking  about  marriage. 
They  are  not  always  thinking  of  people  like  Mr.  Caliph 
—  that  way." 

"  They  must  have  changed  then,  since  my  time ! 
Was  n't  it  so  in  yours,  Miss  Condit  ? "  She 's  so  stu- 
pid that  I  don't  think  she  meant  to  make  a  point. 

"  I  had  no  '  time,'  Mrs.  Ermine.  I  was  born  an 
old  maid." 

3 


34  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  Well,  the  old  inaids  are  the  worst.  I  don't  see 
why  it 's  low  to  talk  about  marriage.  It 's  thought 
very  respectable  to  marry.  You  have  only  to  look 
round  you." 

"  I  don't  want  to  look  round  me ;  it 's  not  always 
so  beautiful,  what  you  see,"  Eunice  said,  with  a  small 
laugh  and  a  good  deal  of  perversity,  for  a  young 
woman  so  reasonable. 

"  I  guess  you  read  too  much,"  said  Mrs.  Ermine, 
getting  up  and  setting  her  bonnet-ribbons  at  the 
mirror. 

"  I  should  think  he  would  hate  them  !  "  Eunice  ex- 
claimed, striking  her  chords. 

"  Hate  who  ? "  her  cousin  asked. 

"  Oh,  all  the  silly  girls." 

"  Who  is  '  he,'  pray  ? "  This  ingenious  inquiry  was 
mine. 

"Oh,  the  Grand  Turk!"  said  Eunice,  with  her 
voice  covered  by  the  sound  of  her  piano.  Her  piano 
is  a  great  resource. 

May  12.  This  afternoon,  while  we  were  having 
our  tea,  the  Grand  Turk  was  ushered  in,  carrying  the 
most  wonderful  bouquet  of  Boston  roses  that  seraglio 
ever  produced.  (That  image,  by  the  way,  is  rather 
mixed  ;  but  as  I  write  for  myself  alone,  it  may  stand.) 
At  the  end  of  ten  minutes  he  asked  Eunice  if  he 
might  see  her  alone — "  on  a  little  matter  of  business." 
I  instantly  rose  to  leave  them,  but  Eunice  said  that 
she  would  rather  talk  with  him  in  the  library ;  so  she 
led  him  off  to  that  apartment.  I  remained  in  the 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  35 

drawing-room,  saying  to  myself  that  I  had  at  last 
discovered  the  fin  mot  of  Mr.  Caliph's  peculiarities, 
which  is  so  very  simple  that  I  am  a  great  goose  not 
to  have  perceived  it  before.  He  is  a  man  with  a 
system;  and  his  system  is  simply  to  keep  business 
and  entertainment  perfectly  distinct.  There  may  be 
pleasure  for  him  in  his  figures,  but  there  are  no  fig- 
ures in  his  pleasure  —  which  has  hitherto  been  to 
call  upon  Eunice  as  a  man  of  the  world.  To-day  he 
was  to  be  the  trustee ;  I  could  see  it  in  spite  of  his 
bouquet,  as  soon  as  he  came  in.  The  Boston  roses 
did  n't  contradict  that,  for  the  excellent  reason  that 
as  soon  as  he  had  shaken  hands  with  Eunice,  who 
looked  at  the  flowers  and  not  at  him,  he  presented 
them  to  Catherine  Condit.  Eunice  then  looked  at 
this  lady;  and  as  I  took  the  roses  I  met  her  eyes, 
which  had  a  charming  light  of  pleasure.  Tt  would 
be  base  in  me,  even  in  this  strictly  private  record,  to 
suggest  that  she  might  possibly  have  been  displeased ; 
but  if  I  cannot  say  that  the  expression  of  her  face 
was  lovely  without  appearing  in  some  degree  to  point 
to  an  ignoble  alternative,  it  is  the  fault  of  human 
nature.  Why  Mr.  Caliph  should  suddenly  think  it 
necessary  to  offer  flowers  to  Catherine  Condit  —  that 
is  a  line  of  inquiry  by  itself.  As  I  said  some  time 
back,  it 's  a  part  of  his  floridity.  Besides,  any  pres- 
entation of  flowers  seems  sudden  ;  I  don't  know  why, 
but  it 's  always  rather  a  gmtp  de  theatre.  I  am  writing 
late  at  night ;  they  stand  on  my  table,  and  their  fra- 
grance is  in  the  air.  I  don't  say  it  for  the  flowers,  but 


36  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

no  one  has  ever  treated  poor  Miss  Condit  with  such 
consistent  consideration  as  Mr.  Caliph.  Perhaps  she 
is  morbid:  this  is  probably  the  Diary  of  a  Morbid 
Woman ;  but  in  such  a  matter  as  that  she  admires 
consistency.  That  little  glance  of  Eunice  comes 
back  to  me  as  I  write ;  she  is  a  pure,  enchanting 
soul.  Mrs.  Ermine  came  in  while  she  was  in  the 
library  with  Mr.  Caliph,  and  immediately  noticed  the 
Boston  roses,  which  effaced  all  the  other  flowers  in 
the  room. 

"  Were  they  sent  from  her  seat  ?  "  she  asked.  Then, 
before  I  could  answer,  "I  am  going  to  have  some 
people  to  dinner  to-day;  they  would  look  very  well 
in  the  middle." 

"If  you  wish  me  to  offer  them  to  you,  I  really 
can't;  I  prize  them  too  much." 

"  Oh,  are  they  yours  ?  Of  course  you  prize  them  ! 
I  don't  suppose  you  have  many." 

"  These  are  the  first  I  have  ever  received  —  from 
Mr.  Caliph." 

"  From  Mr.  Caliph  ?  Did  he  give  them  to  you  ?  " 
Mrs.  Ermine's  intonations  are  not  delicate.  That 
"you"  should  be  in  enormous  capitals. 

"  With  his  own  hand  —  a  quarter  of  an  hour  ago." 
Tli is  sounds  triumphant,  as  I  write  it ;  but  it  was  no 
great  sensation  to  triumph  over  Mrs.  Ermine. 

She  laid  down  the  bouquet,  looking  almost  thought- 
ful. "  He  does  want  to  marry  Eunice,"  she  declared 
in  a  moment.  This  is  the  region  in  which,  after  a 
flight  of  fancy,  she  usually  alights.  I  am  sick  of  the 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  37 

irrepressible  verb ;  just  at  that  moment,  however,  it 
was  unexpected,  and  I  answered  that  I  did  n't  under- 
stand. 

"  That 's  why  he  gives  you  flowers,"  she  explained. 
But  the  explanation  made  the  matter  darker  still,  and 
Mrs.  Ermine  went  on:  "Isn't  there  some  French 
proverb  about  paying  one's  court  to  the  mother  in 
order  to  gain  the  daughter  ?  Eunice  is  the  daughter, 
and  you  are  the  mother." 

"  And  you  are  the  grandmother,  I  suppose !  Do 
you  mean  that  he  wishes  me  to  intercede  ? " 

"  I  can't  imagine  why  else  ! "  and  smiling,  with  her 
wide  lips,  she  stared  at  the  flowers. 

"At  that  rate  you  too  will  get  your  bouquet,"  I 
said. 

"  Oh,  I  have  no  influence  !  '  You  ought  to  do  some- 
thing in  return  —  to  offer  to  paint  his  portrait." 

"  I  don't  offer  that,  you  know ;  people  ask  me.  Be- 
sides, you  have  spoiled  rne  for  common  models !" 

It  strikes  me,  as  I  write  this,  that  we  had  gone 
rather  far  —  farther  than  it  seemed  at  the  time.  We 
might  have  gone  farther  yet,  however,  if  at  this  mo- 
ment Eunice  had  not  come  back  with  Mr.  Caliph,  who 
appeared  to  have  settled  his  little  matter  of  business 
briskly  enough.  He  remained  the  man  of  business  to 
the  end,  and,  to  Mrs.  Ermine's  evident  disappointment, 
declined  to  sit  down  again.  He  was  in  a  hurry ;  he 
had  an  engagement. 

"  Are  you  going  up  or  down  ?  I  have  a  carriage  at 
the  door,"  she  broke  in. 


38  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  At  Fifty-third  Street  one  is  usually  going  down  ; " 
and  he  gave  his  peculiar  smile,  which  always  seems 
so  much  beyond  the  scope  of  the  words  it  accom- 
panies. "  If  you  will  give  me  a  lift  I  shall  be  very 
grateful." 

He  went  off  with  her,  she  being  much  divided 
between  the  prospect  of  driving  with  him  and  her 
loss  of  the  chance  to  find  out  what  he  had  been  say- 
ing to  Eunice.  She  probably  believed  he  had  been 
proposing  to  her,  and  I  hope  he  mystified  her  well  in 
the  carriage. 

He  had  not  been  proposing  to  Eunice;  he  had 
given  her  a  cheque,  and  made  her  sign  some  papers. 
The  cheque  was  for  a  thousand  dollars,  but  I  have  no 
knowledge  of  the  papers.  When  I  took  up  my  abode 
with  her,  I  made  up  my  mind  that  the  only  way  to 
preserve  an  appearance  of  disinterestedness  was  to 
know  nothing  whatever  of  the  details  of  her  pecuniary 
affairs.  She  has  a  very  good  little  head  of  her  own, 
and  if  she  should  n't  understand  them  herself  it  would 
be  quite  out  of  my  power  to  help  her.  I  don't  know 
why  I  should  care  about  appearing  disinterested, 
when  I  have  in  quite  sufficient  measure  the  con- 
sciousness of  being  so ;  but  in  point  of  fact  I  do,  and 
I  value  that  purity  as  much  as  any  other.  Besides, 
Mr.  Caliph  is  her  supreme  adviser  arid  of  course 
makes  everything  clear  to  her.  At  least  I  hope  he 
does.  I  couldn't  help  saying  as  much  as  this  to 
Eunice. 

"  My  dear  child,  I  suppose  you  understand  what 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  39 

you  sign.  Mr.  Caliph  ought  to  be  —  what  shall  I 
call  it  ?  —  crystalline." 

She  looked  at  me  with  the  smile  that  had  come 
into  her  face  when  she  saw  him  give  me  the  flowers. 
"Oh,  yes,  I  think  so.  If  I  didn't,  it's  my  own 
fault.  He  explains  everything  so  beautifully  that 
it's  a  pleasure  to  listen.  I  always  read  what  I 
sign." 

"  Je  1'espere  bien  !  "  I  said,  laughing. 

She  looked  a  little  grave.  "  The  closing  up  a  trust 
is  very  complicated." 

"  Yours  is  not  closed  yet  ?  It  strikes  me  as  very 
slow." 

"Everything  can't  be  done  at  once.  Besides,  he 
has  asked  for  a  little  delay.  Part  of  my  affairs,  in- 
deed, are  now  in  my  own  hands;  otherwise  I  should  n't 
have  to  sign." 

"  Is  that  a  usual  request  —  for  delay  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,  perfectly.  Besides,  I  don't  want  every- 
thing in  my  own  control.  That  is,  I  want  it  some  day, 
because  I  think  I  ought  to  accept  the  responsibilities, 
as  I  accept  all  the  pleasures ;  but  I  am  not  in  a 
hurry.  This  way  is  so  comfortable,  and  Mr.  Caliph 
takes  so  much  trouble  for  me." 

"  I  suppose  he  has  a  handsome  commission,"  I 
said,  rather  crudely. 

"He  has  no  commission  at  all;  he  would  never 
take  one." 

"In  your  place,  I  would  much  rather  he  should 
take  one." 


40  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  I  have  asked  him  to,  but  he  won't ! "  Eunice  said, 
looking  now  extremely  grave. 

Her  gravity  indeed  was  so  great  that  it  made  me 
smile.  "  He  is  wonderfully  generous  ! " 

"  He  is  indeed." 

"  And  is  it  to  be  indefinitely  delayed  —  the  termi- 
nation of  his  trust  ? " 

"  Oh,  no  ;  only  a  few  months,  ( till  he  gets  things 
into  shape,'  as  he  says." 

"  He  has  had  several  years  for  that,  has  n't  he  ?  " 

Eunice  turned  away ;  evidently  our  talk  was  pain- 
ful to  her.  But  there  was  something  that  vaguely 
alarmed  me  in  her  taking,  or  at  least  accepting, 
the  sentimental  view  of  Mr.  Caliph's  services.  "  I 
don't  think  you  are  kind,  Catherine ;  you  seem  to 
suspect  him,"  she  remarked,  after  a  little. 

"  Suspect  him  of  what  ?  " 

"  Of  not  wishing  to  give  up  the  property." 

"My  dear  Eunice,  you  put  things  into  terrible 
words !  Seriously,  I  should  never  think  of  suspect- 
ing him  of  anything  so  silly.  What  could  his  wishes 
count  for  ?  Is  not  the  thing  regulated  by  law  — 
by  the  terms  of  your  mother's  will  ?  The  trust  ex- 
pires of  itself  at  a  certain  period,  does  n't  it  ?  Mr. 
Caliph,  surely,  has  only  to  act  accordingly." 

"  It  is  just  what  he  is  doing.  But  there  are  more 
papers  necessary,  and  they  will  not  be  ready  for  a  few 
weeks  more." 

"  Don't  have  too  many  papers  ;  they  are  as  bad  as 
too  few.  And  take  advice  of  some  one  else  —  say  of 


THE  L}fPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  41 

your  cousin  Ermine,  who  is  so  much  more  sensible 
than  his  wife." 

"  I  want  no  advice,"  said  Eunice,  in  a  tone  which 
showed  me  that  I  had  said  enough.     And  presently 
she  went  on,  "  I  thought  you  liked  Mr.  Caliph." 
"  So  I  do,  immensely.     He  gives  beautiful  flowers." 
"  Ah,  you  are  horrid  ! "  she  murmured. 
"Of  course  I  am  horrid.     That 's  my  business  —  to 
be  horrid."     And  I  took  the  liberty  of  being  so  again, 
half  an  hour  later,  when  she  remarked  that  she  must 
take  good  care  of  the  cheque  Mr.  Caliph  had  brought 
her,  as  it  would  be  a  good  while  before  she  should 
have   another.      "Why   should    it   be   longer    than 
usual  ? "  I  asked.     "  Is  he  going  to  keep  your  in- 
come for  himself  ? " 

"  I  am  not  to  have  any  till  the  end  of  the  year  — 
any  from  the  trust,  at  least.     Mr.  Caliph  has  been 
converting  some  old  houses  into  shops,  so  that  they 
will  bring  more  rent.     But  the  alterations  have  to  be 
paid  for  —  and  he  takes  part  of  my  income  to  do  it." 
"  And  pray  what  are  you  to  live  on  meanwhile  ? " 
"  I  have  enough  without  that ;  and  I  have  savings." 
"  It  strikes  me  as  a  cool  proceeding,  all  the  same." 
"  He  wrote  to  me  about  it  before  we  came  home, 
and  I  thought  that  way  was  best." 

"  I  don't  think  he  ought  to  have  asked  you,"  I  said. 
"  As  your  trustee,  he  acts  in  his  discretion." 
"  You  are  hard  to  please,"  Eunice  answered. 
TJ  at  is  perfectly  true;  but  I  rejoined  that  I  could  n't 
make  out  whether  he  consulted  her  too  much  or  too 


42  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

little.  And  I  don't  know  that  my  failure  to  make  it 
out  in  the  least  matters  ! 

May  13.  Mrs.  Ermine  turned  up  to-day  at  an 
earlier  hour  than  usual,  and  I  saw  as  soon  as  she  got 
into  the  room  that  she  had  something  to  announce. 
This  time  it  was  not  an  engagement.  "  He  sent  me  a 
bouquet  —  Boston  roses  —  quite  as  many  as  yours  ! 
They  arrived  this  morning,  before  I  had  finished 
breakfast."  This  speech  was  addressed  to  me,  and 
Mrs.  Ermine  looked  almost  brilliant.  Eunice  scarcely 
followed  her. 

"  She  is  talking  about  Mr.  Caliph,"  I  explained. 

Eunice  stared  a  moment ;  then  her  face  melted  into 
a  deep  little  smile.  "  He  seems  to  give  flowers  to 
every  one  but  to  me."  I  could  see  that  this  reflection 
gave  her  remarkable  pleasure. 

"  Well,  when  he  gives  them,  he 's  thinking  of  you," 
said  Mrs.  Ermine.  "He  wants  to  get  us  on  his  side." 

"  On  his  side  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  some  day  he  will  have  need  of  us !"  And 
Mrs.  Ermine  tried  to  look  sprightly  and  insinuating. 
But  she  is  too  utterly  fade,  and  I  think  it  is  not 
worth  while  to  talk  any  more  to  Eunice  just  now 
about  her  trustee.  So,  to  anticipate  Mrs.  Ermine,  I 
said  to  her  quickly,  but  very  quietly  — 

"  He  sent  you  flowers  simply  because  you  had 
taken  him  into  your  carriage  last  night.  It  was  an 
acknowledgment  of  your  great  kindness." 

She  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Possibly.  We  had  a 
charming  drive  —  ever  so  far  down -town."  Then, 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIX.  43 

turning  to  Eunice,  she  exclaimed,  "My  dear,  you 
don't  know  that  man  till  you  have  had  a  drive  with 
him  !  "  When  does  one  know  Mrs.  Ermine  ?  Every 
day  she  is  a  surprise  ! 

May  19.  Adrian  Frank  has  come  back  to  Xew 
York,  and  has  been  three  times  at  this  house  —  once 
to  dinner,  and  twice  at  tea-time.  After  his  brother's 
strong  expression  of  the  hope  that  we  would  take  an 
interest  in  him,  Eunice  appears  to  have  thought 
that  the  least  she  could  do  was  to  ask  him  to  dine. 
She  appears  never  to  have  offered  this  privilege  to 
Mr.  Caliph,  by  the  way;  I  think  her  view  of  his 
cleverness  is  such  that  she  imagines  she  knows  no 
one  sufficiently  brilliant  to  be  invited  to  meet  him. 
She  thought  Mrs.  Ermine  good  enough  to  meet  Mr. 
Frank,  and  she  had  also  young  Woodley —  Willie 
Woodley,  as  they  call  him  —  and  Mr.  Latrobe.  It 
was  not  very  amusing.  Mrs.  Ermine  made  love  to 
Mr.  Woodley,  who  took  it  serenely ;  and  the  dark 
Latrobe  talked  to  me  about  the  Seventh  Regiment 
—  an  impossible  subject.  Mr.  Frank  made  an  occa- 
sional remark  to  Eunice,  next  whom  he  was  placed ; 
but  he  seemed  constrained  and  frightened,  as  if  he 
knew  that  his  step-brother  had  recommended  him 
highly  and  felt  it  was  impossible  to  come  up  to  the 
mark.  He  is  really  very  modest;  it  is  impossible 
not  to  like  him.  Every  now  and  then  he  looked  at 
me,  with  his  clear  blue  eye  conscious  and  expanded, 
as  if  to  beg  me  to  help  him  on  with  Eunice ;  and 
then,  when  I  threw  in  a  word,  to  give  their  conversa- 


44  THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN. 

tion  a  push,  he  looked  at  her  in  the  same  way,  as  if 
to  express  the  hope  that  she  would  not  abandon  him. 
There  was  no  danger  of  this,  she  only  wished  to  be 
agreeable  to  him  ;  but  she  was  nervous  and  preoccu- 
pied, as  she  always  is  when  she  has  people  to  dinner 
— :  she  is  so  afraid  they  may  be  bored  —  and  I  think 
that  half  the  time  she  didn't  understand  what  he 
said.  She  told  me  afterwards  that  she  liked  him 
more  even  than  she  liked  him  at  first ;  that  he  has,  in 
her  opinion,  better  manners,  in  spite  of  his  shyness, 
than  any  of  the  young  men ;  and  that  he  must  have  a 
nice  nature  to  have  such  a  charming  face  ;  —  all  this 
she  told  me,  and  she  added  that,  notwithstanding  all 
this,  there  is  something  in  Mr.  Adrian  Frank  that 
makes  her  uncomfortable.  It  is  perhaps  rather  heart- 
less, but  after  this,  when  he  called  two  days  ago,  I 
went  out  of  the  room  and  left  them  alone  together. 
The  truth  is,  there  is  something  in  this  tall,  fair, 
vague,  inconsequent  youth,  who  would  look  like  a 
Prussian  lieutenant  if  Prussian  lieutenants  ever  hesi- 
tated, and  who  is  such  a  singular  mixture  of  confu- 
sion and  candor — there  is  something  about  him  that 
is  not  altogether  to  my  own  taste,  and  that  is  why 
I  took  the  liberty  of  leaving  him.  Oddly  enough, 
I  don't  in  the  least  know  what  it  is ;  I  usually  know 
why  I  dislike  people.  I  don't  dislike  the  blushing 
Adrian,  however  —  that  is,  after  all,  the  oddest  part. 
No,  the  oddest  part  of  it  is  that  I  think  I  have  a  feel- 
ing of  pity  for  him  ;  that  is  probably  why  (if  it  were 
not  my  duty  sometimes  to  remain)  I  should  always 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A    COUSIN.  45 

depart  when  he  comes.  I  don't  like  to  see  the  people 
I  pity  ;  to  be  pitied  by  me  is  too  low  a  depth.  Why 
I  should  lavish  my  compassion  on  Mr.  Frank  of 
course  passes  my  comprehension.  He  is  young,  in- 
telligent, in  perfect  health,  master  of  a  handsome 
fortune,  and  favorite  brother  of  Haroun-al-Easchid. 
Such  are  the  consequences  of  being  a  woman  of  im- 
agination. When,  at  dinner,  I  asked  Eunice  if  he 
had  been  as  interesting  as  usual,  she  said  she  would 
leave  it  to  me  to  judge ;  he  had  talked  altogether 
about  Miss  Condit !  He  thinks  her  very  attractive  ! 
Poor  fellow,  when  it  is  necessary  he  does  n't  hesitate, 
though  I  can't  imagine  why  it  should  be  necessary. 
I  think  that  au  fond  he  bores  Eunice  a  little ;  like 
many  girls  of  the  delicate,  sensitive  kind,  she  likes 
older,  more  confident  men. 

May  24  He  has  just  made  me  a  remarkable 
communication !  This  morning  I  went  into  the  Park 
in  quest  of  a  "  bit,"  with  some  colors  and  brushes  in 
a  small  box,  and  that  wonderfully  compressible  camp- 
stool  which  I  can  carry  in  my  pocket.  I  wandered 
vaguely  enough,  for  half  an  hour,  through  the  care- 
fully-arranged scenery,  the  idea  of  which  appears  to 
be  to  represent  the  earth's  surface  en  raccourci,  and 
at  last  discovered  a  small  clump  of  birches  which, 
with  their  white  stems  and  their  little  raw  green 
bristles,  were  not  altogether  uninspiring.  The  place 
was  quiet  —  there  were  no  nurse-maids  nor  bicycles ; 
so  I  took  up  a  position  and  enjoyed  an  hour's  suc- 
cessful work.  At  last  I  heard  some  one  say  behind 


46  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

me,  "  I  think  I  ought  to  tell  you  I  'm  looking !  "  It 
was  Adrian  Frank,  who  had  recognized  rne  at  a  dis- 
tance, and,  without  my  hearing  him,  had  walked 
across  the  grass  to  where  I  sat.  This  time  I  could  n't 
leave  him,  for  I  had  n't  finished  my  sketch.  He  sat 
down  near  me,  on  an  artistically-preserved  rock,  and 
we  ended  by  having  a  good  deal  of  talk  —  in  which, 
however,  I  did  the  listening,  for  I  can't  express  my- 
self in  two  ways  at  once.  What  I  listened  to  was 
this  —  that  Mr.  Caliph  wishes  his  step-brother  to 
"  make  up  "  to  Eunice,  and  that  the  candid  Adrian 
wishes  to  know  what  I  think  of  his  chances. 
"  Are  you  in  love  with  her  ?  "  I  asked. 
"  Oh  dear,  no !  If  I  were  in  love  with  her  I 
should  go  straight  in,  without  —  without  this  sort 
of  thing." 

"  You  mean  without  asking  people's  opinion  ?  " 
"  Well,  yes.  Without  asking  even  yours." 
I  told  him  that  he  need  n't  say  "  even  "  mine ;  for 
mine  would  not  be  worth  much.  His  announcement 
rather  startled  me  at  first,  but  after  I  had  thought  of 
it  a  little,  I  found  in  it  a  good  deal  to  admire.  I 
have  seen  so  many  "  arranged "  marriages  that  have 
been  happy,  and  so  many  "  sympathetic  "  unions  that 
have  been  wretched,  that  the  political  element  does  n't 
altogether  shock  me.  Of  course  I  can't  imagine 
Eunice  making  a  political  marriage,  and  I  said  to  Mr. 
Frank,  very  promptly,  that  she  might  consent  if  she 
could  be  induced  to  love  him,  but  would  never  be 
governed  in  her  choice  by  his  advantages.  I  said 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  47 

"  advantages  "  in  order  to  be  polite ;  the  singular  num- 
ber would  have  served  all  the  purpose.  His  only 
advantage  is  his  fortune;  for  he  has  neither  looks, 
talents,  nor  position  that  would  dazzle  a  girl  who  is 
herself  clever  and  rich.  This,  then,  is  what  Mr. 
Caliph  has  had  in  his  head  all  this  while  —  this  is 
what  has  made  him  so  anxious  that  we  should  like 
his  step-brother.  I  have  an  idea  that  I  ought  to  be 
rather  scandalized,  but  I  feel  my  pulse  and  find  that 
I  am  almost  pleased.  I  don't  mean  at  the  idea  of 
her  marrying  poor  Mr.  Frank ;  I  mean  at  such  an  in- 
dication that  Mr.  Caliph  takes  an  interest  in  her.  I 
don't  know  whether  it  is  one  of  the  regular  duties  of 
a  trustee  to  provide  the  trustful  with  a  husband; 
perhaps  in  that  case  his  merit  may  be  less.  I  sup- 
pose he  has  said  to  himself,  that  if  she  marries  his 
step-brother  she  won't  marry  a  worse  man.  Of  course 
it  is  possible  that  he  may  not  have  thought  of  Eunice 
at  all,  and  may  simply  have  wished  the  guileless 
Adrian  to  do  a  good  thing  without  regard  to  Eunice's 
point  of  view.  I  am  afraid  that  even  this  idea 
does  n't  shock  me.  Trying  to  make  people  marry  is, 
under  any  circumstances,  an  unscrupulous  game ;  but 
the  offence  is  minimized  when  it  is  a  question  of  an 
honest  man  marrying  an  angel.  Eunice  is  the  angel, 
and  the  young  Adrian  has  all  the  air  of  being  honest. 
It  would,  naturally,  not  be  the  union  of  her  secret 
dreams,  for  the  hero  of  those  pure  visions  would  have 
to  be  clever  and  distinguished.  Mr.  Frank  is  neither 
of  these  things,  but  I  believe  he  is  perfectly  good.  Of 


48  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

course  he  is  weak  —  to  come  and  take  a  wife  simply 
because  his  brother  has  told  him  to  —  or  is  he  doing 
it  simply  for  form,  believing  that  she  will  never  have 
him,  that  he  consequently  does  n't  expose  himself, 
and  that  he  will  therefore  have  on  easy  terms,  since 
he  seems  to  value  it,  the  credit  of  having  obeyed  Mr. 
Caliph?  Why  he  should  value  it  is  a  matter  be- 
tween themselves,  which  I  am  not  obliged  to  know. 
I  don't  think  I  care  at  all  for  the  relations  of  men 
between  themselves.  Their  relations  with  women 
are  bad  enough,  but  when  there  is  no  woman  to  save 
it  a  little  — merci  !  I  should  n't  think  that  the  young 
Adrian  would  care  to  subject  himself  to  a  simple 
refusal,  for  it  is  not  gratifying  to  receive  the  cold 
shoulder,  even  from  a  woman  you  don't  want  to 
marry.  After  all,  he  may  want  to  marry  her ;  there 
are  all  sorts  of  reasons  in  things.  I  told  him  I 
wouldn't  undertake  to  do  anything,  and  the  more 
I  think  of  it  the  less  I  am  willing.  It  would  be  a 
weight  off  my  mind  to  see  her  comfortably  settled  in 
life,  beyond  the  possibility  of  marrying  some  highly 
varnished  brute  —  a  fate  in  certain  circumstances 
quite  open  to  her.  She  is  perfectly  capable  —  with 
her  folded  angel's  wings  —  of  bestowing  herself  upon 
the  baker,  upon  the  fishmonger,  if  she  was  to  take 
a  fancy  to  him.  The  clever  man  of  her  dreams  might 
beat  her  or  get  tired  of  her ;  but  I  am  sure  that  Mr. 
Frank,  if  he  should  pronounce  his  marriage-vows, 
would  keep  them  to  the  letter.  From  that  to  pushing 
her  into  his  arms,  however,  is  a  long  way.  I  went  so 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  49 

far  as  to  tell  him  that  he  had  my  good  wishes  ;  but  I 
made  him  understand  that  I  can  give  him  no  help.  He 
sat  for  some  time  poking  a  hole  in  the  earth  with  his 
stick  and  watching  the  operation.  Then  he  said,  with 
his  wide,  exaggerated  smile  —  the  one  thing  in  his  face 
that  recalls  his  brother,  though  it  is  so  different — "  I 
think  I  should  like  to  try."  I  felt  rather  sorry  for 
him,  and  made  him  talk  of  something  else ;  and  we 
separated  without  his  alluding  to  Eunice,  though  at 
the  last  he  looked  at  me  for  a  moment  intently,  with 
something  on  his  lips  which  was  probably  a  return  to 
his  idea.  I  stopped  him ;  I  told  him  I  always  re- 
quired solitude  for  my  finishing-touches.  He  thinks 
me  lyrusque,  and  queer,  but  he  went  away.  I  don't 
know  what  he  means  to  do;  I  am  curious  to  see 
whether  he  will  begin  his  siege.  It  can  scarcely  be 
said,  as  yet,  to  have  begun  —  Eunice,  at  any  rate,  is 
all  unconscious. 

June  6.  Her  unconsciousness  is  being  rapidly 
dispelled ;  Mr.  Frank  has  been  here  every  day  since 
I  last  wrote.  He  is  a  singular  youth,  and  I  don't 
make  him  out ;  I  think  there  is  more  in  him  than  I 
supposed  at  first.  He  does  n't  bore  us,  and  he  has 
become,  to  a  certain  extent,  one  of  the  family.  I 
like  him  very  much,  and  he  excites  my  curiosity. 
I  don't  quite  see  where  he  expects  to  come  out.  I 
mentioned  some  time  back  that  Eunice  had  told  me 
he  made  her  uncomfortable;  and  now,  if  that  con- 
tinues, she  appears  to  have  resigned  herself.  He  has 
asked  her  repeatedly  to  drive  with  him,  and  twice 

4 


50  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

she  has  consented ;  he  has  a  very  pretty  pair  of 
horses,  and  a  vehicle  that  holds  but  two  persons.  I 
told  him  I  could  give  him  no  positive  help,  but  I  do 
leave  them  together.  Of  course  Eunice  has  noticed 
this  —  it  is  the  only  intimation  I  have  given  her  that 
I  am  aware  of  his  intentions.  I  have  constantly  ex- 
pected her  to  say  something,  but  she  has  said  nothing, 
and  it  is  possible  that  Mr.  Frank  is  making  an  im- 
pression. He  makes  love  very  reasonably  ;  evidently 
his  idea  is  to  be  intensely  gradual.  Of  course  it 
is  n't  gradual  to  come  every  day ;  but  he  does  very 
little  on  any  one  occasion.  That,  at  least,  is  my  im- 
pression ;  for  when  I  talk  of  his  making  love  I  don't 
mean  that  I  see  it.  When  the  three  of  us  are  to- 
gether he  talks  to  me  quite  as  much  as  to  her,  and 
there  is  no  difference  in  his  manner  from  one  of  us 
to  the  other.  His  shyness  is  wearing  off,  and  he 
blushes  so  much  less  that  I  have  discovered  his  nat- 
ural hue.  It  has  several  shades  less1  of  crimson  than 
I  supposed.  I  have  taken  care  that  he  should  not 
see  me  alone,  for  T  don't  wish  him  to  talk  to  me  of 
what  he  is  doing  —  I  wish  to  have  nothing  to  say 
about  it.  He  has  looked  at  rne  several  times  in  the 
same  way  in  which  he  looked  just  before  we  parted, 
that  day  he  found  me  sketching  in  the  park ;  that  is, 
as  if  he  wished  to  have  some  special  understanding 
with  me.  But  I  don't  want  a  special  understanding, 
and  I  pretend  not  to  see  his  looks.  I  don't  exactly 
see  why  Eunice  does  n't  speak  to  me,  and  why  she 
expresses  no  surprise  at  Mr.  Frank's  sudden  devotion. 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  51 

Perhaps  Mr.  Caliph  has  notified  her,  aud  she  is  pre-' 
pared  for  everything  —  prepared  even  to  accept  the 
young  Adrian.  I  have  an  idea  he  will  be  rather 
taken  in  if  she  does.  Perhaps  the  day  will  come 
soon  when  I  shall  think  it  well  to  say :  "  Take  care, 
take  care ;  you  may  succeed  !  "  He  improves  on  ac- 
quaintance ;  he  knows  a  great  many  things,  and  he  is 
a  gentleman  to  his  finger-tips.  We  talk  very  often 
about  Rome  ;  he  has  made  out  every  inscription  for 
himself,  and  has  got  them  all  written  down  in  a  little 
book.  He  brought  it  the  other  afternoon  and  read 
some  of  them  out  to  us,  and  it  was  more  amusing 
than  it  may  sound.  I  listen  to  such  things  because  I 
can  listen  to  anything  about  Rome  ;  and  Eunice  listens 
possibly  because  Mr.  Caliph  has  told  her  to.  She 
appears  ready  to  do  anything  he  tells  her ;  he  has  been 
sending  her  some  more  papers  to  sign.  He  has  not^ 
been  here  since  the  day  he  gave  me  the  flowers  ;  we 
went  back  to  Washington  shortly  after  that.  She  has 
received  several  letters  from  him,  accompanying  docu- 
ments that  look  very  legal  She  has  said  nothing 
to  me  about  them,  and  since  I  uttered  those  words  of 
warning  which  I  noted  here  at  the  time,  I  have 
asked  no  questions  and  offered  no  criticism.  Some- 
times I  wonder  whether  I  myself  had  not  better 
speak  to  Mr.  Ermine ;  it  is  only  the  fear  of  being 
idiotic  and  meddlesome  that  restrains  me.  It  seems 
to  me  so  odd  there  should  be  no  one  else ;  Mr.  Caliph 
appears  to  have  everything  in  his  own  hands.  We 
are  to  go  down  to  our  "  seat,"  as  Mrs.  Ermine  says, 


52  THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A    COUSIN. 

next  week.  That  brilliant  woman  has  left  town  her- 
self, like  many  other  people,  and  is  staying  with 
one  of  her  daughters.  Then  she  is  going  to  the 
other,  and  then  she  is  coming  to  Eunice,  at  Corner- 
ville. 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  53 


PAKT  II. 

June  8.  Late  this  afternoon  —  about  an  hour  before 
dinner  —  Mr.  Frank  arrived  with  what  Mrs.  Ermine 
calls  his  equipage,  and  asked  her  to  take  a  short  drive 
with  him.  At  first  she  declined  —  said  it  was  too 
hot,  too  late,  she  was  too  tired ;  but  he  seemed  very 
much  in  earnest,  and  begged  her  to  think  better  of  it. 
She  consented  at  last,  and  when  she  had  left  the  room 
to  arrange  herself,  he  turned  to  me  with  a  little  grin 
of  elation.  I  saw  he  was  going  to  say  something 
about  his  prospects,  and  I  determined,  this  time,  to 
give  him  a  chance.  Besides,  I  was  curious  to  know 
how  he  believed  himself  to  be  getting  on.  To  my 
surprise,  he  disappointed  my  curiosity ;  he  only  said, 
with  his  timid  brightness,  "  I  am  always  so  glad  when 
I  carry  my  point." 

"  Your  point  ?  Oh,  yes.  I  think  I  know  what  you 
mean." 

"It's  what  I  told  you  that  day."  He  seemed 
slightly  surprised  that  I  should  be  in  doubt  as  to 
whether  he  had  really  presented  himself  as  a  lover. 

"  Do  you  mean  to  ask  her  to  marry  you  ?  " 

He  stared  a  little,  looking  graver.  "  Do  you  mean 
to-day  ? " 


54  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  "Well,  yes,  to-day,  for  instance ;  you  have  urged 
her  so  to  drive." 

"  I  don't  think  I  will  do  it  to-day ;  it 's  too  soon." 

His  gravity  was  natural  enough,  I  suppose ;  but  it 
had  suddenly  become  so  intense  that  the  effect  was 
comical,  and  I  could  not  help  laughing.  "  Very  good ; 
whenever  you  please." 

"  Don't  you  think  it 's  too  soon  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Ah,  I  know  nothing  about  it." 

"I  have  seen  her  alone  only  four  or  five  times." 

"  You  must  go  on  as  you  think  best,"  I  said. 

"  It 's  hard  to  tell.  My  position  is  very  difficult." 
And  then  he  began  to  smile  again.  He  is  certainly 
very  odd. 

It  is  my  fault,  I  suppose,  that  I  am  too  impatient 
of  what  I  don't  understand ;  and  I  don't  understand 
this  odd  mixture  of  the  perfunctory  and  the  pas- 
sionate, or  the  singular  alternation  of  Mr.  Frank's 
confessions  and  reserves.  "  I  can't  enter  into  your 
position,"  I  said ;  "  I  can't  advise  you  or  help  you  in 
any  way."  Even  to  myself  my  voice  sounded  a  little 
hard  as  I  spoke,  and  he  was  evidently  discomposed 
by  it. 

He  blushed  as  usual,  and  fell  to  putting  on  his 
gloves.  "  I  think  a  great  deal  of  your  opinion,  and 
for  several  days  I  have  wanted  to  ask  you." 

"  Yes,  I  have  seen  that." 

"  How  have  you  seen  it  ? " 

"  By  the  way  you  have  looked  at  me." 

He  hesitated  a  moment.     "Yes,  I  have  looked  at 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  55 

you  —  I  know  that.  There  is  a  great  deal  in  your 
face  to  see." 

This  remark,  under  the  circumstances,  struck  me 
as  absurd ;  I  began  to  laugh  again.  "  You  speak  of 
it  as  if  it  were  a  collection  of  curiosities."  He  looked 
away  now,  he  would  n't  meet  my  eye,  and  I  saw  that 
I  had  made  him  feel  thoroughly  uncomfortable.  To 
lead  the  conversation  back  into  the  commonplace,  I 
asked  him  where  he  intended  to  drive. 

"  It  does  n't  matter  much  where  we  go  —  it 's  so 
pretty  everywhere  now."  He  was  evidently  not 
thinking  of  his  drive,  and  suddenly  he  broke  out,  "  I 
want  to  know  whether  you  think  she  likes  me." 

"  I  have  n't  the  least  idea.     She  has  n't  told  me." 

"  Do  you  think  she  knows  that  I  mean  to  propose 
to  her?" 

"You  ought  to  be  able  to  judge  of  that  better 
than  I." 

"  I  am  afraid  of  taking  too  much  for  granted ;  also 
of  taking  her  by  surprise." 

"  So  that  —  in  her  agitation  —  she  might  accept 
you  ?  Is  that  what  you  are  afraid  of  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  what  makes  you  say  that.  I  wish 
her  to  accept  me." 

"  Are  you  very  sure  ? " 

"Perfectly  sure.  Why  not?  She  is  a  charming 
creature." 

"  So  much  the  better,  then ;  perhaps  she  will." 

"  You  don't  believe  it,"  he  exclaimed,  as  if  it  were 
very  clever  of  him  to  have  discovered  that. 


56  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  You  think  too  much  of  what  I  believe.  That  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  matter." 

"  No,  I  suppose  not,"  said  Mr.  Frank,  apparently 
wishing  very  much  to  agree  with  me. 

"  You  had  better  find  out  as  soon  as  possible  from 
Eunice  herself,"  I  added. 

"  I  have  n't  expected  to  know  —  for  some  time." 

"  Do  you  mean  for  a  year  or  two  ?  She  will  be 
ready  to  tell  you  before  that." 

"  Oh  no  —  not  a  year  or  two ;  but  a  few  weeks." 

"You  know  you  come  to  the  house  every  day. 
You  ought  to  explain  to  her." 

"  Perhaps  I  had  better  not  come  so  often." 

"  Perhaps  not ! " 

"  I  like  it  very  much,"  he  said,  smiling. 

I  looked  at  him  a  moment ;  I  don't  know  what  he 
has  got  in  his  eyes.  "  Don't  change  !  You  are  such 
a  good  young  man  that  I  don't  know  what  we  should 
do  without  you."  And  I  left  him  to  wait  alone  for 
Eunice. 

From  my  window,  above,  I  saw  them  leave  the 
door ;  they  make  a  fair,  bright  young  couple  as  they 
sit  together.  They  had  not  been  gone  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  when  Mr.  Caliph's  name  was  brought  up  to 
me.  He  had  asked  for  me  —  me  alone ;  he  begged 
that  I  would  do  him  the  favor  to  see  him  for  ten 
minutes.  I  don't  know  why  this  announcement 
should  have  made  me  nervous ;  but  it  did.  My 
heart  beat  at  the  prospect  of  entering  into  direct  re- 
lations with  Mr.  Caliph.  He  is  very  clever,  much 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  .  57 

thought  of,  and  talked  of;  and  yet  I  had  vaguely 
suspected  him  —  of  I  don't  know  what !  I  became 
conscious  of  that,  and  felt  the  responsibility  of  it; 
though  I  didn't  foresee,  and  indeed  don't  think  I 
foresee  yet,  any  danger  of  a  collision  between  us.  It 
is  to  be  noted,  moreover,  that  even  a  woman  who  is 
both  plain  and  conceited  must  feel  a  certain  agitation 
at  entering  the  presence  of  Haroun-al-Easchid.  I 
had  begun  to  dress  for  dinner,  and  I  kept  him  wait- 
ing till  I  had  taken  my  usual  time  to  finish.  I  al- 
ways take  some  such  revenge  as  that  upon  men  who 
make  me  nervous.  He  is  the  sort  of  man  who  feels 
immediately  whether  a  woman  is  well-dressed  or  not ; 
but  I  don't  think  this  reflection  really  had  much  to 
do  with  my  putting  on  the  freshest  of  my  three  little 
French  gowns. 

He  sat  there,  watch  in  hand ;  at  least  he  slipped  it 
into  his  pocket  as  I  came  into  the  room.  He  was 
not  pleased  at  having  had  to  wait,  and  when  I  apolo- 
gized, hypocritically,  for  having  kept  him,  he  an- 
swered, with  a  certain  dryness,  that  he  had  come  to 
transact  an  important  piece  of  business  in  a  very 
short  space  of  time.  I  wondered  what  his  business 
could  be,  and  whether  he  had  come  to  confess  to  me 
that  he  had  spent  Eunice's  money  for  his  own  pur- 
poses. Did  he  wish  me  to  use  my  influence  with  her 
not  to  make  a  scandal  ?  He  did  n't  look  like  a  man 
who  has  come  to  ask  a  favor  of  that  kind ;  but  I  am 
sure  that  if  he  ever  does  ask  it  he  will  not  look  at 
all  as  he  might  be  expected  to  look.  He  was  clad  in 


58  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

white  garments,  from  head  to  foot,  in  recognition  of 
the  hot  weather, .  and  he  had  half  a  dozen  roses  in  his 
button-hole.  This  time  his  flowers  were  for  himself. 
His  white  clothes  made  him  look  as  big  as  Henry 
VIII. ;  but  don't  tell  me  he  is  not  a  Jew!  He's  a 
Jew  of  the  artistic,  not  of  the  commercial,  type ;  and 
as  I  stood  there  I  thought  him  a  very  strange  person 
to  have  as  one's  trustee.  It  seemed  to  me  that  he 
would  carry  such  an  office  into  transcendental  re- 
gions, out  of  all  common  jurisdictions ;  and  it  was  a 
comfort  to  me  to  remember  that  I  have  no  property 
to  be  taken  care  of.  Mr.  Caliph  kept  a  pocket-hand- 
kerchief, with  an  enormous  monogram,  in  his  large 
tapering  hand,  and  every  other  moment  he  touched 
his  face  with  it.  He  evidently  suffers  from  the  heat. 
With  all  that,  il  est  lien  beau.  His  business  was  not 
what  had  at  first  occurred  to  me ;  but  I  don't  know 
that  it  was  much  less  strange. 

"  I  knew  I  should  find  you  alone,  because  Adrian 
told  me  this  morning  that  he  meant  to  come  and  ask 
our  young  friend  to  drive.  I  was  glad  of  that ;  I 
have  been  wishing  to  see  you  alone,  and  I  did  n't 
know  how  to  manage  it." 

"You  see  it's  very  simple.  Did  n't  you  send  your 
brother  ? "  I  asked.  In  another  place,  to  another 
person,  this  might  have  sounded  impertinent ;  but 
evidently,  addressed  to  Mr.  Caliph,  things  have  a 
special  measure,  and  this  I  instinctively  felt.  He 
will  take  a  great  deal,  and  he  will  give  a  great  deal. 

He  looked  at  me  a  moment,  as  if  he  were  trying  to 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  59 

measure  what  I  would  take.  "  I  see  you  are  going 
to  be  a  very  satisfactory  person  to  talk  with,"  he 
answered.  "  That 's  exactly  what  I  counted  on.  I 
want  you  to  help  rne." 

"  I  thought  there  was  some  reason  why  Mr.  Frank 
should  urge  Eunice  so  to  go,"  I  went  on ;  refreshed  a 
little,  I  admit,  by  these  words  of  commendation.  "  At 
first  she  was  unwilling." 

"  Is  she  usually  unwilling  —  and  does  he  usually 
have  to  be  urgent  ? "  he  asked,  like  a  man  pleased  to 
come  straight  to  the  point. 

"  What  does  it  matter,  so  long  as  she  consents  in 
the  end  ? "  I  responded,  with  a  smile  that  made  him 
smile.  There  is  a  singular  stimulus,  even  a  sort  of 
excitement,  in  talking  with  him ;  he  makes  one  wish 
to  venture.  And  this  not  as  women  usually  venture, 
because  they  have  a  sense  of  impunity,  but,  on  the 
contrary,  because  one  has  a  prevision  of  penalties 
—  those  penalties  which  give  a  kind  of  dignity  to 
sarcasm.  He  must  be  a  dangerous  man  to  irritate. 

"  Do  you  think  she  will  consent,  in  the  end  ? "  he 
inquired;  and  though  I  had  now  foreseen  what  he 
was  coming  to,  I  felt  that,  even  with  various  precau- 
tions which  he  had  plainly  decided  not  to  take,  there 
would  still  have  been  a  certain  crudity  in  it  when,  a 
moment  later,  he  put  his  errand  into  words.  "  I  want 
my  little  brother  to  marry  her,  and  I  want  you  to 
help  me  bring  it  about."  Then  he  told  me  that  he 
knew  his  brother  had  already  spoken  to  me,  but  that 
he  believed  I  had  not  promised  him  much  counte- 


60  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

nance.  He  wished  me  to  think  well  of  the  plan ;  it 
would  be  a  delightful  marriage. 

"Delightful  for  your  brother,  yes.  That's  what 
strikes  me  most." 

"  Delightful  for  him,  certainly ;  but  also  very  pleas- 
ant for  Eunice,  as  things  go  here.  Adrian  is  the 
best  fellow  in  the  world;  he's  a  gentleman;  he  has  n't 
a  vice  or  a  fault ;  he  is  very  well  educated ;  and  he 
has  twenty  thousand  a  year.  A  lovely  property." 

"  Not  in  trust  ? "  I  said,  looking  into  Mr.  Caliph's 
extraordinary  eyes. 

"  Oh,  no ;  he  has  full  control  of  it.  But  he  is  won- 
derfully careful" 

"  He  does  n't  trouble  you  with  it  ?  " 

"  Oh,  dear,  no ;  why  should  he  ?  Thank  God,  I 
have  n't  got  that  on  my  back.  His  property  comes 
to  him  from  his  father,  who  had  nothing  to  do  with 
me ;  did  n't  even  like  me,  I  think.  He  has  capital 
advisers  —  presidents  of  banks,  overseers  of  hospitals, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  They  have  put  him  in 
the  way  of  some  excellent  investments." 

As  I  write  this,  I  am  surprised  at  my  audacity ; 
but,  somehow,  it  did  n't  seem  so  great  at  the  time, 
and  he  gave  absolutely  no  sign  of  seeing  more  in  what 
I  said  than  appeared.  He  evidently  desires  the  mar- 
riage immensely,  and  he  was  thinking  only  of  put- 
ting it  before  me  so  that  I  too  should  think  well  of 
it ;  for  evidently,  like  his  brother,  he  has  the  most 
exaggerated  opinion  of  my  influence  with  Eunice. 
On  Mr.  Frank's  part  this  does  n't  surprise  me  so 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  61 

much ;  but  I  confess  it  seems  to  me  odd  that  a  man 
of  Mr.  Caliph's  acuteness  should  make  the  mistake 
of  taking  me  for  one  of  those  persons  who  covet  in- 
fluence and  like  to  pull  the  wires  of  other  people's 
actions.  I  have  a  horror  of  influence,  and  should  never 
have  consented  to  come  and  live  with  Eunice  if  I 
had  not  seen  that  she  is  at  bottom  much  stronger 
than  I,  who  am  not  at  all  strong,  in  spite  of  my  grand 
airs.  Mr.  Caliph,  I  suppose,  cannot  conceive  of  a 
woman  in  my  dependent  position  being  indifferent  to 
opportunities  for  working  in  the  dark ;  but  he  ought 
to  leave  those  vulgar  imputations  to  Mrs.  Ermine. 
He  ought,  with  his  intelligence,  to  see  one  as  one  is ; 
or  do  I  possibly  exaggerate  that  intelligence  ?  "  Do 
you  know  I  feel  as  if  you  were  asking  me  to  take 
part  in  a  conspiracy  ? "  I  made  that  announcement 
with  as  little  delay  as  possible. 

He  stared  a  moment,  and  then  he  said  that  he  did  n't 
in  the  least  repudiate  that  view  of  his  proposal.  He 
admitted  that  he  was  a  conspirator  —  in  an  excellent 
cause.  All  match-making  was  conspiracy.  It  was 
impossible  that  as  a  superior  woman  I  should  enter 
into  his  ideas,  and  he  was  sure  that  I  had  seen  too 
much  of  the  world  to  say  anything  so  banal  as  that 
the  young  people  were  not  in  love  with  each  other. 
That  was  only  a  basis  for  marriage  when  better  things 
were  lacking.  It  was  decent,  it  was  fitting,  that 
Eunice  should  be  settled  in  life  ;  his  conscience  would 
not  be  at  rest  about  her  until  he  should  see  that  well 
arranged.  He  was  not  in  the  least  afraid  of  that 


62  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A    COUSIN. 

word  "  arrangement ; "  a  marriage  was  an  eminently 
practical  matter,  and  it  could  not  be  too  much  ar- 
ranged. He  confessed  that  he  took  the  European 
view.  He  thought  that  a  young  girl's  elders  ought 
to  see  that  she  marries  in  a  way  in  which  certain 
definite  proprieties  are  observed.  He  was  sure  of  his 
brother ;  he  knew  how  faultless  Adrian  was.  He 
talked  for  some  time,  and  said  a  great  deal  that  I  had 
said  to  myself  the  other  day,  after  Mr.  Frank  spoke 
to  me ;  said,  in  particular,  very  much  what  I  had 
thought,  about  the  beauty  of  arrangements  —  that 
there  are  far  too  few  among  Americans  who  marry ; 
that  we  are  the  people  in  the  world  who  divorce  and 
separate  most ;  that  there  would  be  much  less  of  that 
sort  of  thing  if  young  people  were  helped  to  choose,  if 
marriages  were,  as  one  might  say,  presented  to  them. 
I  listened  to  Mr.  Caliph  with  my  best  attention,  think- 
ing it  was  odd  that,  on  his  lips,  certain  things  which 
I  had  phrased  to  myself  in  very  much  the  same  way 
should  sound  so  differently.  They  ought  to  have 
sounded  better,  uttered  as  they  were  with  the  energy, 
the  authority,  the  lucidity,  of  a  man  accustomed  to 
making  arguments ;  but  somehow  they  did  n't.  I  am 
afraid  I  am  very  perverse.  I  answered  —  I  hardly 
remember  what ;  but  there  was  a  taint  of  that  per- 
versity in  it.  As  he  rejoined,  I  felt  that  he  was  grow- 
ing urgent  —  very  urgent ;  he  has  an  immense  desire 
that  something  may  be  done.  I  remember  saying  at 
last,  "  What  I  don't  understand  is  why  your  brother 
should  wish  to  marry  my  cousin.  He  has  told  me 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  63 

he  is  not  in  love  with  her.  Has  your  presentation 
of  the  idea,  as  you  call  it  —  has  that  been  enough  ? 
Is  he  acting  simply  at  your  request  ? " 

I  saw  that  his  reply  was  not  perfectly  ready,  and 
for  a  moment  those  strange  eyes  of  his  emitted  a  ray 
that  I  had  not  seen  before.  They  seemed  to  say, 
"  Are  you  really  taking  liberties  with  me  ?  Be  on 
your  guard;  I  may  be  dangerous."  But  he  always 
smiles.  Yes,  I  think  he  is  dangerous,  though  I  don't 
know  exactly  what  he  could  do  to  me.  I  believe  he 
would  smile  at  the  hangman,  if  he  were  condemned 
to  meet  him.  He  is  very  angry  with  his  brother  for 
having  admitted  to  me  that  the  sentiment  he  enter- 
tains for  Eunice  is  not  a  passion ;  as  if  it  would  have 
been  possible  for  him,  under  my  eyes,  to  pretend  that 
he  is  in  love !  I  don't  think  I  am  afraid  of  Mr. 
Caliph ;  I  don't  desire  to  take  liberties  with  him  (as 
his  eyes  seemed  to  call  it)  or  with  any  one ;  but,  de- 
cidedly, I  am  not  afraid  of  him.  If  it  came  to  pro- 
tecting Eunice,  for  instance  ;  to  demanding  justice  — 
But  what  extravagances  am  I  writing  ?  He  answered, 
in  a  moment,  with  a  good  deal  of  dignity,  and  even  a 
good  deal  of  reason,  that  his  brother  has  the  greatest 
admiration  for  my  cousin,  that  he  agrees  fully  and 
cordially  with  everything  he  (Mr.  Caliph)  has  said 
to  him  about  its  being  an  excellent  match,  that 
he  wants  very  much  to  marry,  and  wants  to  marry 
as  a  gentleman  should.  If  he  is  not  in  love  with 
Eunice,  moreover,  he  is  not  in  love  with  any  one 
else. 


64  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  I  hope  not ! "  I  said,  with  a  laugh ;  whereupon 
Mr.  Caliph  got  up,  looking,  for  him,  rather  grave. 

"I  can't  imagine  why  you  should  suppose  that 
Adrian  is  not  acting  freely.  I  don't  know  what  you 
imagine  my  means  of  coercion  to  be." 

"  I  don't  imagine  anything.  I  think  I  only  wish 
he  had  thought  of  it  himself." 

"  He  would  never  think  of  anything  that  is  for  his 
good.  He  is  not  in  the  least  interested." 

"Well,  I  don't  know  that  it  matters,  because  I 
don't  think  Eunice  will  see  it  —  as  we  see  it." 

"  Thank  you  for  saying  '  we/  Is  she  in  love  with 
some  one  else  ? " 

"  Not  that  I  know  of ;  but  she  may  expect  to  be, 
some  day.  And  better  than  that,  she  may  expect  — 
very  justly —  some  one  to  be  in  love  with  her." 

"  Oh,  in  love  with  her !  How  you  women  talk  ! 
You  all  of  you  want  the  moon.  If  she  is  not  content 
to  be  thought  of  as  Adrian  thinks  of  her,  she  is  a  very 
silly  girl.  What  will  she  have  more  than  tenderness  ? 
That  boy  is  all  tenderness." 

"Perhaps  he  is  too  tender,"  I  suggested.  "I  think 
he  is  afraid  to  ask  her." 

"  Yes,  I  know  he  is  nervous  —  at  the  idea  of  a  re- 
fusal. But  I  should  like  her  to  refuse  him  once." 

"  It  is  not  of  that  he  is  afraid  —  it  is  of  her  accept- 
ing him." 

Mr.  Caliph  smiled,  as  if  he  thought  this  very  inge- 
nious. "  You  don't  understand  him.  I  'm  so  sorry ! 
I  had  an  idea  that  —  with  your  knowledge  of  human 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  65 

nature,  your  powers  of  observation — you  would  have 
perceived  how  he  is  made.  In  fact,  I  rather  counted 
on  that."  He  said  this  with  a  little  tone  of  injury 
which  might  have  made  me  feel  terribly  inadequate 
if  it  had  not  been  accompanied  with  a  glance  that 
seemed  to  say  that,  after  all,  he  was  generous  and  he 
forgave  me.  "  Adrian's  is  one  of  those  natures  that 
are  inflamed  by  not  succeeding.  He  does  n't  give 
up;  he  thrives  on  opposition.  If  she  refuses  him 
three  or  four  times  he  will  adore  her ! " 

"  She  is  sure  then  to  be  adored  —  though  I  am  not 
sure  it  will  make  a  difference  with  her.  I  have  n't 
yet  seen  a  sign  that  she  cares  for  him." 

"  Why  then  does  she  go  out  to  drive  with  him  ? " 
There  was  nothing  brutal  in  the  elation  with  which 
Mr.  Caliph  made  this  point ;  still,  he  looked  a  little  as 
if  he  pitied  me  for  exposing  myself  to  a  refutation  so 
prompt. 

"  That  proves  nothing,  I  think.  I  would  go  to 
drive  with  Mr.  Frank,  if  he  should  ask  me,  and  I 
should  be  very  much  surprised  if  it  were  regarded  as 
an  intimation  that  I  am  ready  to  marry  him." 

Mr.  Caliph  had  his  hands  resting  on  his  thighs, 
and  in  this  position,  bending  forward  a  little,  with 
his  smile  he  said,  "Ah,  but  he  doesn't  want  to 
marry  you  \ " 

That  was  a  little  brutal,  I  think ;  but  I  should  have 
appeared  ridiculous  if  I  had  attempted  to  resent  it. 
I  simply  answered  that  I  had  as  yet  seen  no  sign 
even  that  Eunice  is  conscious  of  Mr.  Frank's  inten- 


66  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

tions.  I  think  she  is,  but  I  don't  think  so  from  any- 
thing she  has  said  or  done.  Mr.  Caliph  maintains 
that  she  is  capable  of  going  for  six  months  without 
betraying  herself,  all  the  while  quietly  considering 
and  making  up  her  mind.  It  is  possible  he  is  right  — 
he  has  known  her  longer  than  I.  He  is  far  from 
wishing  to  wait  for  six  months,  however ;  and  the  part 
I  must  play  is  to  bring  matters  to  a  crisis.  I  told 
him  that  I  did  n't  see  why  he  did  not  speak  to  her  di- 
rectly—  why  he  should  operate  in  this  roundabout 
way.  Why  should  n't  he  say  to  her  all  that  he  had 
said  to  me  —  tell  her  that  she  would  make  him  very 
happy  by  marrying  his  little  brother  ?  He  answered 
that  this  is  impossible,  that  the  nearness  of  the  rela- 
tionship would  make  it  unbecoming ;  it  would  look 
like  a  kind  of  nepotism.  The  thing  must  appear  to 
come  to  pass  of  itself  —  and  I,  somehow,  must  be  the 
author  of  that  appearance  !  I  was  too  much  a  woman 
of  the  world,  too  acquainted  with  life,  not  to  see  the 
force  of  all  this.  He  had  a  great  deal  to  say  about  my 
being  a  woman  of  the  world;  in  one  sense  it  is  not  all 
complimentary ;  one  would  think  me  some  battered 
old  dowager  who  had  married  off  fifteen  daughters. 
I  feel  that  I  am  far  from  all  that  when  Mr.  Caliph 
leaves  me  so  mystified.  He  has  some  other  reason 
for  wishing  these  nuptials  than  love  of  the  two  young 
people,  but  I  am  unable  to  put  my  hand  on  it. 
Like  the  children  at  hide-and-seek,  however,  I  think 
I  "  burn."  I  don't  like  him,  I  mistrust  him  ;  but  he  is 
a  very  charming  man.  His  geniality,  his  richness,  his 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  67 

magnetism,  I  suppose  I  should  say,  are  extraordinary ; 
he  fascinates  me,  in  spite  of  my  suspicions.  The  truth 
is,  that  in  his  way  he  is  an  artist,  and  in  my  little 
way  I  am  also  one ;  and  the  artist  in  me  recognizes 
the  artist  in  him,  and  cannot  quite  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  foregather.  What  is  more  than  this,  the  artist 
in  him  has  recognized  the  artist  in  me  —  it  is  very 
good  of  him  —  and  would  like  to  establish  a  cer- 
tain freemasonry.  "  Let  us  take  together  the  artis- 
tic view  of  life ; "  that  is  simply  the  meaning  of  his 
talking  so  much  about  my  being  a  woman  of  the 
world.  That  is  all  very  well ;  but  it  seems  to  me  there 
would  be  a  certain  baseness  in  our  being  artists  to- 
gether at  the  expense  of  poor  little  Eunice.  I  should 
like  to  know  some  of  Mr.  Caliph's  secrets,  but  I  don't 
wish  to  give  him  any  of  mine  in  return  for  them. 
Yet  I  gave  him  something  before  he  departed;  I 
hardly  know  what,  and  hardly  know  how  he  extracted 
it  from  me.  It  was  a  sort  of  promise  that  I  would 
after  all  speak  to  Eunice, —  "as  I  should  like  to  have 
you,  you  know."  He  remained  there  for  a  quarter  of 
an  hour  after  he  got  up  to  go ;  walking  about  the  room 
with  his  hands  on  his  hips ;  talking,  arguing,  laughing, 
holding  me  with  his  eyes,  his  admirable  face  —  as 
natural,  as  dramatic,  and  at  the  same  time  as  diplo- 
matic, as  an  Italian.  I  am  pretty  sure  he  was  trying 
to  produce  a  certain  effect,  to  entangle,  to  magnetize 
me.  Strange  to  say,  Mr.  Caliph  compromises  him- 
self, but  he  does  n't  compromise  his  brother.  He 
has  a  private  reason,  but  his  brother  has  nothing 


68  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

to  do  with  his  privacies.  That  was  my  last  word 
to  him. 

"  The  moment  I  feel  sure  that  I  may  do  something 
for  your  brother's  happiness  —  your  brother's  alone  — 
by  pleading  his  cause  with  Eunice  —  that  moment  I 
will  speak  to  her.  But  I  can  do  nothing  for  yours." 

In  answer  to  this,  Mr.  Caliph  said  something  very 
unexpected.  "  I  wish  I  had  known  you  five  years 
ago!" 

There  are  many  meanings  to  that;  perhaps  he 
would  have  liked  to  put  me  out  of  the  way.  But  I 
could  take  only  the  polite  meaning.  "  Our  acquaint- 
ance could  never  have  begun  too  soon." 

"  Yes,  I  should  have  liked  to  know  you,"  he  went  on, 
"  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  you  are  not  kind,  that  you 
are  not  just.  Have  I  asked  you  to  do  anything  for 
my  happiness  ?  My  happiness  is  nothing.  I  have 
nothing  to  do  with  happiness.  1  don't  deserve  it. 
It  is  only  for  my  little  brother  —  and  for  your  charm- 
ing cousin." 

I  was  obliged  to  admit  that  he  was  right ;  that  he 
had  asked  nothing  for  himself.  "  But  I  don't  want 
to  do  anything  for  you  even  by  accident !  "  I  said  — 
laughing,  of  course. 

This  time  he  was  grave.  He  stood  looking  at  me  a 
moment,  then  put  out  his  hand.  "  Yes,  I  wish  I  had 
known  you ! " 

There  was  something  so  expressive  in  his  voice,  so 
handsome  in  his  face,  so  tender  and  respectful  in  his 
manner,  as  he  said  this,  that  for  an  instant  I  was 


TEE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.  69 

really  moved,  and  I  was  on  the  point  of  saying  with 
feeling,  "  I  wish  indeed  you  had  I "  But  that  in- 
stinct of  which  I  have  already  spoken  checked  me  — 
the  sense  that  somehow,  as  things  stand,  there  can  be 
no  rapprochement  between  Mr.  Caliph  and  me  that 
will  not  involve  a  certain  sacrifice  of  Eunice.  So  I 
only  replied,  "  You  seem  to  me  strange,  Mr.  Caliph. 
I  must  tell  you  that  I  don't  understand  you." 

He  kept  my  hand,  still  looking  at  me,  and  went  on 
as  if  he  had  not  heard  me.  "  I  am  not  happy  —  I 
am  not  wise  nor  good."  Then  suddenly,  in  quite  a 
different  tone,  "  For  God's  sake,  let  her  marry  my 
brother ! " 

There  was  a  quick  passion  in  these  words  which 
made  me  say,  "  If  it  is  so  urgent  as  that,  you  cer- 
tainly ought  to  speak  to  her.  Perhaps  she  '11  do  it  to 
oblige  you  ! " 

We  had  walked  into  the  hall  together,  and  the  last 
I  saw  of  him  he  stood  in  the  open  doorway,  looking 
back  at  me  with  his  smile.  "  Hang  the  nepotism  I 
I  will  speak  to  her ! " 

Comerville,  July  6.  A  whole  month  has  passed 
since  I  have  made  an  entry;  but  I  have  a  good  excuse 
for  this  dreadful  gap.  Since  we  have  been  in  the 
country  I  have  found  subjects  enough  and  to  spare, 
and  I  have  been  painting  so  hard  that  my  hand,  of 
an  evening,  has  been  glad  to  rest.  This  place  is  very 
lovely,  and  the  Hudson  is  as  beautiful  as  the  Rhine. 
There  are  the  words,  in  black  and  white,  over  my 
signature ;  I  can't  do  more  than  that.  I  have  said  it 


70  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

a  dozen  times,  in  answer  to  as  many  challenges,  and 
now  I  record  the  opinion  with  all  the  solemnity  I  can 
give  it.  May  it  serve  for  the  rest  of  the  summer ! 
This  is  an  excellent  old  house,  of  the  style  that  was 
thought  impressive,  in  this  country,  forty  years  ago. 
It  is  painted  a  cheerful  slate-color,  save  for  a  multi- 
tude of  pilasters  and  facings  which  are  picked  out  in 
the  cleanest  and  freshest  white.  It  has  a  kind  of 
clumsy  gable  or  apex,  on  top ;  a  sort  of  roofed  ter- 
race, below,  from  which  you  may  descend  to  a  lawn 
dotted  with  delightful  old  trees ;  and  between  the  two, 
in  the  second  story,  a  deep  verandah,  let  into  the 
body  of  the  building,  and  ornamented  with  white 
balustrades,  considerably  carved,  and  big  blue  stone 
jars.  Add  to  this  a  multitude  of  green  shutters  and 
striped  awnings,  and  a  mass  of  Virginia  creepers  and 
wisterias,  and  fling  over  it  the  lavish  light  of  the 
American  summer,  and  you  have  a  notion  of  some  of 
the  conditions  of  our  mlleggiatura.  The  great  condi- 
tion, of  course,  is  the  splendid  river  lying  beneath 
our  rounded  headland  in  vast  silvery  stretches,  and 
growing  almost  vague  on  the  opposite  shore.  It  is  a 
country  of  views ;  you  are  always  peeping  down  an 
avenue,  or  ascending  a  mound,  or  going  round  a  corner, 
to  look  at  one.  They  are  rather  too  shining,  too  high- 
pitched,  for  my  little  purposes ;  all  nature  seems 
glazed  with  light  and  varnished  with  freshness.  But 
I  manage  to  scrape  something  off.  Mrs.  Ermine  is 
here,  as  brilliant  as  her  setting;  and  so,  strange  to 
say,  is  Adrian  Frank.  Strange  for  this  reason,  that 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  71 

the  night  before  we  left  town  I  went  into  Eunice's 
room  and  asked  her  whether  she  knew,  or  rather 
whether  she  suspected,  what  was  going  on.  A  sudden 
impulse  came  to  me  ;  it  seemed  to  me  unnatural  that 
in  such  a  situation  I  should  keep  anything  from  her. 
I  don't  want  to  interfere,  but  I  think  I  want  even 
less  to  carry  too  far  my  aversion  to  interference,  and 
without  pretending  to  advise  Eunice,  it  was  revealed 
to  me  that  she  ought  to  know  that  Mr.  Caliph  had 
come  to  see  me  on  purpose  to  induce  me  to  work  upon 
her.  It  was  not  till  after  he  was  gone  that  it  oc- 
curred to  me  he  had  sent  his  brother  in  advance,  on 
purpose  to  get  Eunice  out  of  the  way,  and  that  this 
was  the  reason  the  young  Adrian  would  take  no  re- 
fusal. He  was  really  in  excellent  training.  It  was  a 
very  hot  night.  Eunice  was  alone  in  her  room,  with- 
out a  lamp;  the  windows  were  wide  open,  and  the 
dusk  was  clarified  by  the  light  of  the  street.  She 
sat  there,  among  things  vaguely  visible,  in  a  white 
wrapper,  with  her  fair  hair  on  her  shoulders,  and  I 
could  see  her  eyes  move  toward  me  when  I  asked  her 
whether  she  knew  that  Mr.  Frank  wished  to  marry 
her.  I  could  see  her  smile,  too,  as  she  answered 
that  she  knew  he  thought  he  did,  but  also  knew  he 
didn't. 

"  Of  course  I  have  only  his  word  for  it,"  I  said. 

"  Has  he  told  you  ? " 

"  Oh,  yes,  and  his  brother,  too." 

"  His  brother  ? "     And  Eunice  slowly  got  up. 

"  It 's  an  idea  of  Mr.  Caliph's  as  well.     Indeed  Mr. 


72  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

Caliph  may  have  been  the  first.  He  came  here  to-day, 
while  you  were  out,  to  tell  me  how  much  he  should 
like  to  see  it  come  to  pass.  He  has  set  his  heart 
upon  it,  and  he  wished  me  to  engage  to  do  all  in 
my  power  to  bring  it  about.  Of  course  I  can't  do 
anything,  can  I  ? " 

She  had  sunk  into  her  chair  again  as  I  went  on ; 
she  sat  there  looking  before  her,  in  the  dark.  Before 
she  answered  me  she  gathered  up  her  thick  hair  with 
her  hands,  twisted  it  together,  and  holding  it  in  place, 
on  top  of  her  head,  with  one  hand,  tried  to  fasten  a 
comb  into  it  with  the  other.  I  passed  behind  her 
to  help  her;  I  could  see  she  was  agitated.  "  Oh,  no, 
you  can't  do  anything,"  she  said,  after  a  moment,  with 
a  laugh  that  was  not  like  her  usual  laughter.  "I 
know  all  about  it;  they  have  told  me,  of  course." 
Her  tone  was  forced,  and  I  could  see  that  she  had 
not  really  known  all  about  it  —  had  not  known  that 
Mr.  Caliph  is  pushing  his  brother.  I  went  to  the 
window  and  looked  out  a  little  into  the  hot,  empty 
street,  where  the  gas-lamps  showed  me,  up  and  down, 
the  hundred  high  stoops,  exactly  alike  and  as  ugly  as 
a  bad  dream.  While  I  stood  there  a  thought  sud- 
denly dropped  into  my  mind,  which  has  lain  ever  since 
where  it  fell.  But  I  don't  wish  to  move  it,  even  to 
write  it  here.  I  stayed  with  Eunice  for  ten  minutes  ; 
I  told  her  everything  that  Mr.  Caliph  had  said  to  me. 
She  listened  in  perfect  silence  —  I  could  see  that  she 
was  glad  to  listen.  When  I  related  that  he  did  n't 
wish  to  speak  to  her  himself  on  behalf  of  his  brother, 


THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN.  73 

because  that  would  seem  indelicate,  she  broke  in,  with 
a  certain  eagerness,  "  Yes,  that  is  very  natural ! " 

"  And  now  you  can  marry  Mr.  Frank  without  my 
help  ! "  I  said,  when  I  had  done. 

She  shook  her  head  sadly,  though  she  was  smiling 
again.  "  It 's  too  late  for  your  help.  He  has  asked 
me  to  marry  him,  and  I  have  told  him  he  can  hope 
for  it  —  never  ! " 

I  was  surprised  to  hear  he  had  spoken,  and  she 
said  nothing  about  the  time  or  place.  It  must  have 
been  that  afternoon,  during  their  drive.  I  said  that 
I  was  rather  sorry  for  our  poor  young  friend,  he  was 
such  a  very  nice  fellow.  She  agreed  that  he  was  re- 
markably nice,  but  added  that  this  was  not  a  sufficient 
reason  for  her  marrying  him ;  and  when  I  said  that 
he  would  try  again,  that  I  had  Mr.  Caliph's  assurance 
that  he  would  not  be  easy  to  get  rid  of  and  that  a  re- 
fusal would  only  make  him  persist,  she  answered 
that  he  might  try  as  often  as  he  liked,  he  was  so  little 
disagreeable  to  her  that  she  would  take  even  that 
from  him.  And  now,  to  give  him  a  chance  to  try 
again,  she  has  asked  him  down  here  to  stay,  thinking 
apparently  that  Mrs.  Ermine's  presence  puts  us  en 
regie  with  the  proprieties.  I  should  add  that  she 
assured  me  there  was  no  real  danger  of  his  trying 
again ;  he  had  told  her  he  meant  to,  but  he  had  said 
it  only  for  form.  Why  should  he,  since  he  was  not 
in  love  with  her  ?  It  was  all  an  idea  of  his  brother's, 
and  she  was  much  obliged  to  Mr.  Caliph,  who  took 
his  duties  much  too  seriously  and  was  not  in  the  least 


74  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

bound  to  provide  her  with  a  husband.  Mr.  Frank 
and  she  had  agreed  to  remain  friends,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened ;  and  I  think  she  then  said  something 
about  her  intending  to  ask  him  to  this  place.  A  few 
days  after  we  got  here,  at  all  events,  she  told  me  that 
she  had  written  to  him,  proposing  his  coming ;  where- 
upon I  intimated  that  I  thought  it  a  singular  overture 
to  make  to  a  rejected  lover  whom  one  did  n't  wish  to 
encourage.  He  would  take  it  as  encouragement,  or 
at  all  events  Mr.  Caliph  would.  She  answered  that 
she  did  n't  care  what  Mr.  Caliph  thinks,  and  that  she 
knew  Mr.  Frank  better  than  I,  and  knew  therefore 
that  he  had  absolutely  no  hope.  But  she  had  a 
particular  reason  for  wishing  him  to  be  here.  That 
sounded  mysterious,  and  she  could  n't  tell  me  more ; 
but  in  a  month  or  two  I  would  guess  her  reason.  As 
she  said  this  she  looked  at  me  with  a  brighter  smile 
than  she  has  had  for  weeks ;  for  I  protest  that  she 
is  troubled  —  Eunice  is  greatly  troubled.  Nearly  a 
month  has  elapsed,  and  I  have  n't  guessed  that  reason. 
Here  is  Adrian  Frank,  at  any  rate,  as  I  say ;  and  I 
can't  make  out  whether  he  persists  or  renounces. 
His  manner  to  Eunice  is  just  the  same ;  he  is  always 
polite  and  always  shy,  never  inattentive  and  never  un- 
mistakable. He  has  not  said  a  word  more  to  me  about 
his  suit.  Apart  from  this  he  is  very  sympathetic,  and 
we  sit  about  sketching  together  in  the  most  frater- 
nal manner.  He  made  to  me  a  day  or  two  since  a 
very  pretty  remark ;  viz.,  that  he  would  rather  copy  a 
sketch  of  mine  than  try,  himself,  to  do  the  place  from 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  75 

nature.  This  perhaps  does  not  look  so  galant  as  I 
repeat  it  here;  but  with  the  tone  and  glance  with 
which  he  said  it,  it  really  almost  touched  ine.  I  was 
glad,  by  the  way,  to  hear  from  Eunice  the  night  before 
we  left  town  that  she  does  n't  care  what  Mr.  Caliph 
thinks ;  only,  I  should  be  gladder  still  if  I  believed 
it.  I  don't,  unfortunately;  among  other  reasons 
because  it  does  n't  at  all  agree  with  that  idea  which 
descended  upon  me  with  a  single  jump  —  from  heaven 
knows  where  —  while  I  looked  out  of  her  window  at 
the  stoops.  I  observe  with  pleasure,  however,  that 
he  does  n't  send  her  any  more  papers  to  sign.  These 
days  pass  softly,  quickly,  but  with  a  curious,  an  un- 
natural, stillness.  It  is  as  if  there  were  something  in 
the  air — a  sort  of  listening  hush.  That  sounds  very 
fantastic,  and  I  suppose  such  remarks  are  only  to  be 
justified  by  my  having  the  artistic  temperament  — 
that  is,  if  I  have  it !  If  I  have  n't,  there  is  no  excuse  ; 
unless  it  be  that  Eunice  is  distinctly  uneasy,  and  that 
it  takes  the  form  of  a  voluntary,  exaggerated  calm,  of 
which  I  feel  the  contact,  the  tension.  She  is  as  quiet 
as  a  mouse  and  yet  as  restless  as  a  flame.  She  is 
neither  well  nor  happy ;  she  does  n't  sleep.  It  is  true 
that  I  asked  Mr.  Frank  the  other  day  what  impres- 
sion she  made  on  him,  and  he  replied,  with  a  little 
start,  and  a  smile  of  alacrity,  "Oh,  delightful,  as 
usual ! "  —  so  that  I  saw  he  did  n't  know  what  he  was 
talking  about.  He  is  tremendously  sunburnt,  and 
as  red  as  a  tomato.  I  wish  he  would  look  a  little 
less  at  my  daubs  and  a  little  more  at  the  woman  he 


76  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

wishes  to  marry.  In  summer  I  always  suffice  to  my- 
self, and  I  am  so  much  interested  in  my  work  that  if 
I  hope,  devoutly,  as  I  do,  that  nothing  is  going  to 
happen  to  Eunice,  it  is  probably  quite  as  much  from 
selfish  motives  as  from  others.  If  anything  were  to 
happen  to  her  I  should  be  immensely  interrupted. 
Mrs.  Ermine  is  bored,  par  exemple  !  She  is  dying  to 
have  a  garden-party,  at  which  she  can  drag  a  long 
train  over  the  lawn ;  but  day  follows  day  and  this  en- 
tertainment does  not  take  place.  Eunice  has  promised 
it,  however,  for  another  week,  and  I  believe  means  to 
send  out  invitations  immediately.  Mrs.  Ermine  has 
offered  to  write  them  all ;  she  has,  after  all,  du  Ion. 
But  the  fatuity  of  her  misunderstandings  of  everything 
that  surrounds  her  passes  belief.  She  sees  nothing  that 
really  occurs,  and  gazes  complacently  into  the  void. 
Her  theory  is  always  that  Mr.  Caliph  is  in  love  with 
Eunice,  —  she  opened  up  to  me  on  the  subject  only 
yesterday,  because  with  no  one  else  to  talk  to  but  the 
young  Adrian,  who  dodges  her,  she  does  n't  in  the 
least  mind  that  she  hates  me,  and  that  I  think  her 
a  goose  —  that  Mr.  Caliph  is  in  love  with  Eunice, 
but  that  Eunice,  who  is  queer  enough  for  anything, 
does  n't  like  him,  so  that  he  has  sent  down  his 
step-brother  to  tell  stories  about  the  good  things  he 
has  done,  and  to  win  over  her  mind  to  a  more  favor- 
able view.  Mrs.  Ermine  believes  in  these  good 
things,  and  appears  to  think  such  action  on  Mr. 
Caliph's  part  both  politic  and  dramatic.  She  has  not 
the  smallest  suspicion  of  the  real  little  drama  that 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  77 

has  been  going  on  under  her  nose.  I  wish  I  had  that 
absence  of  vision  ;  it  would  be  a  great  rest.  Heaven 
knows  I  see  more  than  I  want  —  for  instance  when  I 
see  that  my  poor  little  cousin  is  pinched  with  pain 
and  yet  that  I  can't  relieve  her,  can't  even  advise  her. 
I  could  n't  do  the  former  even  if  I  would,  and  she 
would  n't  let  me  do  the  latter  even  if  I  could.  It 
seems  too  pitiful,  too  incredible,  that  there  should  be 
no  one  to  turn  to.  Surely,  if  I  go  up  to  town  for  a 
day  next  week,  as  seems  probable,  I  may  call  upon 
William  Ermine.  Whether  I  may  or  not,  I  will. 

July  11.  She  has  been  getting  letters,  and  they 
have  made  her  worse.  Last  night  I  spoke  to  her  — 
I  asked  her  to  come  into  my  room.  I  told  her  that 
I  saw  she  was  in  distress ;  that  it  was  terrible  to  me 
to  see  it ;  that  I  was  sure  that  she  has  some  miserable 
secret.  Who  was  making  her  suffer  this  way  ?  No 
one  had  the  right  —  not  even  Mr.  Caliph,  if  Mr. 
Caliph  it  was,  to  whom  she  appeared  to  have  con- 
ceded every  right.  She  broke  down  completely,  burst 
into  tears,  confessed  that  she  is  troubled  about  money. 
Mr.  Caliph  has  again  requested  a  delay  as  to  his 
handing  in  his  accounts,  and  has  told  her  that  she 
will  have  no  income  for  another  year.  She  thinks 
it  strange ;  she  is  afraid  that  everything  is  n't  right. 
She  is  not  afraid  of  being  poor ;  she  holds  that  it 's 
vile  to  concern  one's  self  so  much  about  money.  But 
there  is  something  that  breaks  her  heart  in  thinking 
that  Mr.  Caliph  should  be  in  fault.  She  had  always 
admired  him,  she  had  always  believed  in  him,  she 


78  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

had  always  —  What  it  was,  in  the  third  place,  that 
she  had  always  done  I  did  n't  learn,  for  at  this  point 
she  buried  her  head  still  deeper  in  my  lap  and  sobbed 
for  half  an  hour.  Her  grief  was  melting.  I  was 
never  more  troubled,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
I  was  furious  at  her  strange  air  of  acceptance  of  a 
probable  calamity.  She  is  afraid  that  everything 
isn't  right,  forsooth!  I  should  think  it  was  not, 
and  should  think  it  had  n't  been  for  heaven  knows 
how  long.  This  is  what  has  been  in  the  air ;  this  is 
what  was  hanging  over  us.  But  Eunice  is  simply 
amazing.  She  declines  to  see  a  lawyer ;  declines  to 
hold  Mr.  Caliph  accountable,  declines  to  complain, 
to  inquire,  to  investigate  in  any  way.  I  am  sick, 
I  am  terribly  perplexed  —  I  don't  know  what  to 
do.  Her  tears  dried  up  in  an  instant  as  soon  as  I 
made  the  very  obvious  remark  that  the  beautiful, 
the  mysterious,  the  captivating  Caliph  is  no  better 
than  a  common  swindler ;  arid  she  gave  me  a  look 
which  might  have  frozen  me  if  when  I  am  angry  I 
were  freezable.  She  took  it  de  lien  haut ;  she  inti- 
mated to  me  that  if  I  should  ever  speak  in  that  way 
again  of  Mr.  Caliph  we  must  part  company  forever. 
She  was  distressed ;  she  admitted  that  she  felt  injured. 
I  had  seen  for  myself  how  far  that  went.  But  she 
did  n't  pretend  to  judge  him.  He  had  been  in  trouble, 
—  he  had  told  her  that ;  and  his  trouble  was  worse 
than  hers,  inasmuch  as  his  honor  was  at  stake,  and  it 
had  to  be  saved. 

"  It 's  charming  to  hear  you  speak  of  his  honor," 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   CO  V SIX.  79 

I  cried,  quite  regardless  of  the  threat  she  had  just 
uttered.  "Where  was  his  honor  when  he  violated  the 
most  sacred  of  trusts  ?  "Where  was  his  honor  when 
he  went  off  with  your  fortune  ?  Those  are  questions, 
my  dear,  that  the  courts  will  make  him  answer.  He 
shall  make  up  to  you  every  penny  that  he  has  stolen, 
or  iny  name  is  not  Catherine  Condit ! " 

Eunice  gave  me  another  look,  which  seemed  meant 
to  let  me  know  that  I  had  suddenly  become  in  her 
eyes  the  most  indecent  of  women;  and  then  she  swept 
out  of  the  room.  I  immediately  sat  down  and  wrote 
to  Mr.  Ermine,  in  order  to  have  my  note  ready  to 
send  up  to  town  at  the  earliest  hour  the  next  morning. 
I  told  him  that  Eunice  was  in  dreadful  trouble  about 
her  money-matters,  and  that  I  believed  he  would 
render  her  a  great  service,  though  she  herself  had  no 
wish  to  ask  it,  by  coming  down  to  see  her  at  his  first 
convenience.  I  reflected,  of  course,  as  I  wrote,  that 
he  could  do  her  no  good  if  she  should  refuse  to  see 
him ;  but  I  made  up  for  this  by  saying  to  myself  that 
I  at  least  should  see  him,  and  that  he  would  do  me 
good.  I  added  in  my  note  that  Eunice  had  been 
despoiled  by  those  who  had  charge  of  her  property ; 
but  I  did  n't  mention  Mr.  Caliph's  name.  I  was  just 
closing  my  letter  when  Eunice  came  into  my  room 
again.  I  saw  in  a  moment  that  she  was  different 
from  anything  she  had  ever  been  before  —  or  at 
least  had  ever  seemed.  Her  excitement,  her  passion, 
had  gone  down ;  even  the  traces  of  her  tears  had  van- 
ished. She  was  perfectly  quiet,  but  all  her  softness 


80  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

had  left  her.  She  was  as  solemn  and  impersonal  as 
the  priestess  of  a  cult.  As  soon  as  her  eyes  fell  upon 
my  letter,  she  asked  me  to  be  so  good  as  to  inform 
her  to  whom  I  had  been  writing.  I  instantly  satis- 
fied her,  telling  her  what  I  had  written ;  and  she 
asked  me  to  give  her  the  document.  "  I  must  let 
you  know  that  I  shall  immediately  burn  it  up,"  she 
added;  and  she  went  on  to  say  that  if  I  should  send 
it  to  Mr.  Ermine  she  herself  would  write  to  him  by 
the  same  post  that  he  was  to  heed  nothing  I  had  said. 
I  tore  up  my  letter,  but  I  announced  to  Eunice  that 
I  would  go  up  to  town  and  see  the  person  to  whom  I 
had  addressed  it.  "  That  brings  us  precisely  to  what 
I  came  in  to  say,"  she  answered  ;  and  she  proceeded 
to  demand  of  me  a  solemn  vow  that  I  would  never 
speak  to  a  living  soul  of  what  I  had  learned  in  regard 
to  her  affairs.  They  were  her  affairs  exclusively,  and 
no  business  of  mine  or  of  any  other  human  being; 
and  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  ask  and  to  expect  this 
promise.  She  has.  indeed  —  more 's  the  pity  ;  but  it 
was  impossible  to  me  to  admit  just  then  —  indignant 
and  excited  as  I  was  —  that  I  recognized  the  right. 
I  did  so  at  last,  however,  and  I  made  the  promise. 
It  seems  strange  to  me  to  write  it  here ;  but  I  am 
pledged  by  a  tremendous  vow,  taken  in  this  "  inti- 
mate "  spot,  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  never 
to  lift  a  finger,  never  to  speak  a  word,  to  redress  any 
wrong  that  Eunice  may  have  received  at  the  hands 
of  her  treacherous  trustee,  to  bring  it  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  others,  or  to  invoke  justice,  compensation,  or 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  81 

pity.  How  she  extorted  this  promise  from  me  is 
more  than  I  can  say  :  she  did  so  by  the  force  of  her 
will,  which,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  note, 
is  far  stronger  than  mine  ;  and  by  the  vividness  of  her 
passion,  which  is  none  the  less  intense  because  it 
burns  inward  and  makes  her  heart  glow  while  her 
face  remains  as  clear  as  an  angel's.  She  seated  her- 
self with  folded  hands,  and  declared  she  would  n't 
leave  the  room  until  I  had  satisfied  her.  She  is  in  a 
state  of  extraordinary  exaltation,  and  from  her  own 
point  of  view  she  was  eloquent  enough.  She  returned 
again  and  again  to  the  fact  that  she  did  not  judge 
Mr.  Caliph ;  that  what  he  may  have  done  is  between 
herself  and  him  alone  ;  and  that  if  she  had  not  been 
betrayed  to  speaking  of  it  to  me  in  the  first  shock  of 
finding  that  certain  allowances  would  have  to  be 
made  for  him,  no  one  need  ever  have  suspected  it. 
She  was  now  perfectly  ready  to  make  those  allow- 
ances. She  was  unspeakably  sorry  for  Mr.  Caliph. 
He  had  been  in  urgent  need  of  money,  and  he  had 
used  hers :  pray,  whose  else  would  I  have  wished 
him  to  use  ?  Her  money  had  been  an  insupportable 
bore  to  him  from  the  day  it  was  thrust  into  his 
hands.  To  make  him  her  trustee  had  been  in  the 
worst  possible  taste ;  he  was  not  the  sort  of  person 
to  make  a  convenience  of,  and  it  had  been  odious  to 
take  advantage  of  his  good  nature.  She  had  always 
been  ashamed  of  owing  him  so  much.  He  had  been 
perfect  in  all  his  relations  with  her,  though  he  must 
have  hated  her  and  her  wretched  little  investments 

6 


80  TEE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

had  left  her.  She  was  as  solemn  and  impersonal  as 
the  priestess  of  a  cult.  As  soon  as  her  eyes  fell  upon 
my  letter,  she  asked  me  to  be  so  good  as  to  inform 
her  to  whom  I  had  been  writing.  I  instantly  satis- 
fied her,  telling  her  what  I  had  written ;  and  she 
asked  me  to  give  her  the  document.  "  I  must  let 
you  know  that  I  shall  immediately  burn  it  up,"  she 
added ;  and  she  went  on  to  say  that  if  I  should  send 
it  to  Mr.  Ermine  she  herself  would  write  to  him  by 
the  same  post  that  he  was  to  heed  nothing  I  had  said. 
I  tore  up  my  letter,  but  I  announced  to  Eunice  that 
I  would  go  up  to  town  and  see  the  person  to  whom  I 
had  addressed  it.  "  That  brings  us  precisely  to  what 
I  came  in  to  say,"  she  answered  ;  and  she  proceeded 
to  demand  of  me  a  solemn  vow  that  I  would  never 
speak  to  a  living  soul  of  what  I  had  learned  in  regard 
to  her  affairs.  They  were  her  affairs  exclusively,  and 
no  business  of  mine  or  of  any  other  human  being; 
and  she  had  a  perfect  right  to  ask  and  to  expect  this 
promise.  She  has.  indeed  —  more 's  the  pity  ;  but  it 
was  impossible  to  me  to  admit  just  then  —  indignant 
and  excited  as  I  was  —  that  I  recognized  the  right. 
I  did  so  at  last,  however,  and  I  made  the  promise. 
It  seems  strange  to  me  to  write  it  here ;  but  I  am 
pledged  by  a  tremendous  vow,  taken  in  this  "  inti- 
mate "  spot,  in  the  small  hours  of  the  morning,  never 
to  lift  a  finger,  never  to  speak  a  word,  to  redress  any 
wrong  that  Eunice  may  have  received  at  the  hands 
of  her  treacherous  trustee,  to  bring  it  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  others,  or  to  invoke  justice,  compensation,  or 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.     81 

pity.  How  she  extorted  this  promise  from  me  is 
more  than  I  can  say  :  she  did  so  by  the  force  of  her 
will,  which,  as  I  have  already  had  occasion  to  note, 
is  far  stronger  than  mine  ;  and  by  the  vividness  of  her 
passion,  which  is  none  the  less  intense  because  it 
burns  inward  and  makes  her  heart  glow  while  her 
face  remains  as  clear  as  an  angel's.  She  seated  her- 
self with  folded  hands,  and  declared  she  would  n't 
leave  the  room  until  I  had  satisfied  her.  She  is  in  a 
state  of  extraordinary  exaltation,  and  from  her  own 
point  of  view  she  was  eloquent  enough.  She  returned 
again  and  again  to  the  fact  that  she  did  not  judge 
Mr.  Caliph ;  that  what  he  may  have  done  is  between 
herself  and  him  alone  ;  and  that  if  she  had  not  been 
betrayed  to  speaking  of  it  to  me  in  the  first  shock  of 
finding  that  certain  allowances  would  have  to  be 
made  for  him,  no  one  need  ever  have  suspected  it. 
She  was  now  perfectly  ready  to  make  those  allow- 
ances. She  was  unspeakably  sorry  for  Mr.  Caliph. 
He  had  been  in  urgent  need  of  money,  and  he  had 
used  hers :  pray,  whose  else  would  I  have  wished 
him  to  use  ?  Her  money  had  been  an  insupportable 
bore  to  him  from  the  day  it  was  thrust  into  his 
hands.  To  make  him  her  trustee  had  been  in  the 
worst  possible  taste ;  he  was  not  the  sort  of  person 
to  make  a  convenience  of,  and  it  had  been  odious  to 
take  advantage  of  his  good  nature.  She  had  always 
been  ashamed  of  owing  him  so  much.  He  had  been 
perfect  in  all  his  relations  with  her,  though  he  must 
have  hated  her  and  her  wretched  little  investments 

6 


82  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

from  the  first.  If  she  had  lost  money,  it  was  not  his 
fault ;  he  had  lost  a  great  deal  more  for  himself  than 
he  had  lost  for  her.  He  was  the  kindest,  the  most 
delightful,  the  most  interesting  of  men.  Eunice 
brought  out  all  this  with  pure  defiance ;  she  had 
never  treated  herself  before  to  the  luxury  of  saying 
it,  and  it  was  singular  to  think  that  she  found  her 
first  pretext,  her  first  boldness,  in  the  fact  that  he 
had  ruined  her.  All  this  looks  almost  grotesque  as  I 
write  it  here ;  but  she  imposed  it  upon  me  last  night 
with  all  the  authority  of  her  passionate  little  person. 
I  agreed,  as  I  say,  that  the  matter  was  none  of  my 
business ;  that  is  now  definite  enough.  Two  other 
things  are  equally  so.  One  is  that  she  is  to  be 
plucked  like  a  chicken ;  the  other  is  that  she  is  in 
love  with  the  precious  Caliph,  and  has  been  so  for 
years  !  I  did  n't  dare  to  write  that  the  other  night, 
after  the  beautiful  idea  had  suddenly  flowered  in  my 
mind ;  but  I  don't  care  what  I  write  now.  I  am  so 
horribly  tongue-tied  that  I  must  at  least  relieve 
myself  here.  Of  course  I  wonder  now  that  I  never 
guessed  her  secret  before ;  especially  as  I  was  per- 
petually hovering  on  the  edge  of  it.  It  explains  many 
things,  and  it  is  very  terrible.  In  love  with  a  pick- 
pocket !  Merci  !  I  am  glad  fate  has  n't  played  me 
that  trick. 

July  14  I  can't  get  over  the  idea  that  lie  is  to 
go  scot-free.  I  grind  my  teeth  over  it  as  I  sit  at 
work,  and  I  find  myself  using  the  most  livid,  the 
most  brilliant  colors.  I  have  had  another  talk  with 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  83 

Eunice,  but  I  don't  in  the  least  know  what  she  is  to 
live  on.  She  says  she  has  always  her  father's  prop- 
erty, and  that  this  will  be  abundant;  but  that  of  course 
she  cannot  pretend  to  live  as  she  has  lived  hitherto. 
She  will  have  to  go  abroad  again  and  economize ;  and 
she  will  probably  have  to  sell  this  place  —  that  is,  if 
she  can.  "  If  she  can  "  of  course  means,  if  there  is 
anything  to  sell ;  if  it  is  n't  devoured  with  mortgages. 
What  I  want  to  know  is,  whether  Justice,  in  such  a 
case  as  this,  will  not  step  in,  notwithstanding  the 
silence  of  the  victim.  If  I  could  only  give  her  a 
hint  —  the  angel  of  the  scales  and  sword  —  in  spite 
of  my  detestable  promise !  I  can't  find  out  about 
Mr.  Caliph's  impunity,  as  it  is  impossible  for  me  to 
allude  to  the  matter  to  any  one  who  would  be  able  to 
tell  me.  Yes,  the  more  I  think  of  it  the  more  reason 
I  see  to  rejoice  that  fate  has  n't  played  me  that  trick 
of  making  me  fall  in  love  with  a  pickpocket !  Suf- 
fering keener  than  my  poor  little  cousin's  I  cannot 
possibly  imagine,  or  a  power  of  self-sacrifice  more 
awful.  Fancy  the  situation,  when  the  only  thing  one 
can  do  for  the  man  one  loves,  is  to  forgive  him  for 
thieving  !  What  a  delicate  attention,  what  a  touching 
proof  of  tenderness !  This  Eunice  can  do ;  she  has 
waited  all  these  years  to  do  something.  I  hope  she 
is  pleased  with  her  opportunity.  And  yet  when  I 
say  she  has  forgiven  him  for  thieving,  I  lose  myself 
in  the  mystery  of  her  exquisite  spirit.  Who  knows 
what  it  is  she  has  forgiven  —  does  she  even  know 
herself?  She  consents  to  being  injured,  despoiled, 


86  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

have  invited  a  thousand  people.  I  can't  imagine  who 
they  all  are.  It  is  an  extraordinary  time  for  Eunice 
to  be  giving  a  party  —  the  day  after  she  discovers 
that  she  is  penniless  ;  but  of  course  it  is  n't  Eunice, 
it 's  Mrs.  Ermine.  I  said  to  her  yesterday  that  if  she 
was  to  change  her  mode  of  life  —  simple  enough 
already,  poor  thing  —  she  had  better  begin  at  once ; 
and  that  her  garden-party  under  Mrs.  Ermine's 
direction  would  cost  her  a  thousand  dollars.  She 
answered  that  she  must  go  on,  since  it  had  already 
been  talked  about;  she  wished  no  one  to  know  any- 
thing—  to  suspect  anything.  This  would  be  her 
last  extravagance,  her  farewell  to  society.  If  such 
resources  were  open  to  us  poor  heretics,  I  should 
suppose  she  meant  to  go  into  a  convent.  She  exas- 
perates me  too  —  every  one  exasperates  me.  It  is 
some  satisfaction,  however,  to  feel  that  my  exaspera- 
tion clears  up  my  mind.  It  is  Caliph  who  is  "  sold," 
after  all.  He  would  not  have  invented  this  alliance 
for  his  brother  if  he  had  known  —  if  he  had  faintly 
suspected  —  that  Eunice  was  in  love  with  him,  inas- 
much as  in  this  case  he  had  assured  impunity. 
Fancy  his  not  knowing  it  —  the  idiot! 

July  10.  They  are  still  directing  cards,  and  Mrs. 
Ermine  has  taken  the  whole  thing  on  her  shoul- 
ders. She  has  invited  people  that  Eunice  has  never 
heard  of —  a  pretty  rabble  she  will  have  made  of  it ! 
She  has  ordered  a  band  of  music  from  New  York, 
and  a  new  dress  for  the  occasion  —  something  in  the 
last  degree  champetre.  Eunice  is  perfectly  indifferent 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  87 

to  what  she  does  ;  I  have  discovered  that  she  is  think- 
ing only  of  one  thing.  Mr.  Caliph  is  coining,  and  the 
bliss  of  that  idea  fills  her  mind.  The  more  people 
the  better ;  she  will  not  have  the  air  of  making  petty 
economies  to  afflict  him  with  the  sight  of  what  he 
has  reduced  her  to  ! 

"  This  is  the  way  Eunice  ought  to  live,"  Mrs.  Er- 
mine said  to  me  this  afternoon,  rubbing  her  hands, 
after  the  last  invitation  had  departed.  When  I  say 
the  last,  I  mean  the  last  till  she  had  remembered 
another  that  was  highly  important,  and  had  floated 
back  into  the  library  to  scribble  it  off.  She  writes  a 
regular  invitation-hand  — •  a  vague,  sloping,  silly  hand, 
that  looks  as  if  it  had  done  nothing  all  its  days  but 
write,  "  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ermine  request  the  pleasure ; " 
or,  "  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ermine  are  delighted  to  accept." 
She  told  me  that  she  knew  Eunice  far  better  than 
Eunice  knew  herself,  and  that  her  line  in  life  was 
evidently  to  "  receive."  No  one  better  than  she  would 
stand  in  a  doorway  and  put  out  her  hand  with  a  smile  ; 
no  one  would  be  a  more  gracious  and  affable  hostess, 
or  make  a  more  generous  use  of  an  ample  fortune. 
She  is  really  very  trying,  Mrs.  Ermine,  with  her  ample 
fortune ;  she  is  like  a  clock  striking  impossible  hours. 
I  think  she  must  have  engaged  a  special  train  for  her 
guests  —  a  train  to  pick  up  people  up  and  down  the 
river.  Adrian  Frank  went  to  town  to-day ;  he  comes 
back  on  the  23d,  and  the  festival  takes  place  the  next 
day.  The  festival,  —  Heaven  help  us  !  Eunice  is  evi- 
dently going  to  be  ill ;  it 's  as  much  as  I  can  do  to 


88  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

keep  from  adding  that  it  serves  her  right !  It 's  a 
great  relief  to  me  that  Mr.  Frank  has  gone ;  this  has 
ceased  to  be  a  place  for  him.  It  is  ever  so  long  since 
he  has  said  anything  to  me  about  his  "  prospects." 
They  are  charming,  his  prospects  ! 

July  26.  The  garden-party  has  taken  place,  and 
a  great  deal  more  besides.  I  have  been  too  agitated, 
too  fatigued  and  bewildered,  to  write  anything  here ; 
but  I  can't  sleep  to-night  —  I  'm  too  nervous  —  and 
it  is  better  to  sit  and  scribble  than  to  toss  about. 
I  may  as  well  say  at  once  that  the  party  was  very 
pretty  —  Mrs.  Ermine  may  have  that  credit.  The 
day  was  lovely ;  the  lawn  was  in  capital  order ;  the 
music  was  good,  and  the  buffet  apparently  inexhaust- 
ible. There  was  an  immense  number  of  people; 
some  of  them  had  come  even  from  Albany  —  many 
of  them  strangers  to  Eunice,  and  proteges  only  of 
Mrs.  Ermine ;  but  they  dispersed  themselves*  on  the 
grounds,  and  I  have  not  heard  as  yet  that  they  stole 
the  spoons  or  plucked  up  the  plants.  Mrs.  Ermine, 
who  was  exceedingly  champetre  —  white  muslin  and 
corn-flowers  —  told  me  that  Eunice  was  "  receiving 
adorably;"  was  in  her  native  element.  She  evi- 
dently inspired  great  curiosity ;  that  was  why  every 
one  had  come.  I  don't  mean  because  every  one  sus- 
pects her  situation,  but  because  as  yet,  since  her  re- 
turn, she  has  been  little  seen  and  known,  and  is 
supposed  to  be  a  distinguished  figure  —  clever,  beau- 
tiful, rich,  and  a  parti.  I  think  she  satisfied  every 
one ;  she  was  voted  most  interesting,  and  except  that 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  89 

she  was  deadly  pale,  she  was  prettier  than  any  one 
else.     Adrian  Frank  did  not  come  back  on  the  23d, 
and  did  not  arrive  for  the  festival.     So  much  I  note 
without  as  yet  understanding  it.     His  absence  from 
the  garden-party,  after  all  his  exertions  under  the 
orders  of  Mrs.  Ermine,  is  in  need  of  an  explanation. 
Mr.  Caliph  could  give  none,  for  Mr.  Caliph  was  there. 
He  professed  surprise  at  not  finding  his  brother ;  said 
he  had  not  seen  him  in  town,  that  he  had  no  idea 
what  had  become  of  him.     This  is  probably  perfectly 
false.     I  am  bound  to  believe  that  everything  he  says 
and  does  is  false ;  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  they  met 
in  New  York,  and  that  Adrian  told  him  his  reason  — 
whatever  it  was  —  for  not   coming   back.     I   don't 
know  how  to  relate  what  took  place  between  Mr. 
Caliph  and  me ;  we  had  an  extraordinary  scene,  —  a 
scene  that  gave  my  nerves  the  shaking  from  which 
they  have  not  recovered.     He  is  truly  a  most  amaz- 
ing personage.     He  is  altogether  beyond  me ;  I  don't 
pretend  to  fathom  him.     To  say  that  he  has  no  moral 
sense  is  nothing.     I  have  seen  other  people  who  have 
had  no  moral  sense;  but  I  have  seen  no  one  with 
that  impudence,  that  cynicism,  that  remorseless  cru- 
elty.    We   had   a  tremendous   encounter;   I   thank 
heaven  that  strength  was  given  me  !     When  I  found 
myself  face  to  face  with  him,  and  it  came  over  me 
that,  blooming  there  in  his  diabolical  assurance,  it 
was  he  —  he  with  his  smiles,  his  bows,  his  gorgeous 
lontonniere,  the  wonderful  air  he  has  of  being  anointed 
and  gilded  —  he  that  had  ruined  my  poor  Eunice, 


90  THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN. 

who  grew  whiter  than  ever  as  he  approached :  when 
I  felt  all  this  my  blood  began  to  tingle,  and  if  I  were 
only  a  handsome  woman  I  might  believe  that  my 
eyes  shone  like  those  of  an  avenging  angel.  He 
was  as  fresh  as  a  day  in  June,  enormous,  and  more 
than  ever  like  Haroun-al-Raschid.  I  asked  him  to 
take  a  walk  with  me;  and  just  for  an  instant,  before 
accepting,  he  looked  at  me,  as  the  French  say,  in  the 
white  of  the  eyes.  But  he  pretended  to  be  delighted, 
and  we  strolled  away  together  to  the  path  that  leads 
down  to  the  river.  It  was  difficult  to  get  away  from 
the  people  —  they  were  all  over  the  place ;  but  I 
made  him  go  so  far  that  at  the  end  of  ten  minutes 
we  were  virtually  alone  together.  It  was  delicious 
to  see  how  he  hated  it.  It  was  then  that  I  asked 
him  what  had  become  of  his  step-brother,  and  that 
he  professed,  as  I  have  said,  the  utmost  ignorance 
of  Adrian's  whereabouts.  I  hated  him ;  it  was  odious 
to  me  to  be  so  close  to  him ;  yet  I  could  have  endured 
this  for  hours  in  order  to  make  him  feel  that  I  de- 
spised him.  To  make  him  feel  it  without  saying  it 
—  there  was  an  inspiration  in  that  idea ;  but  it  is  very 
possible  that  it  made  me  look  more  like  a  demon 
than  like  the  angel  I  just  mentioned.  I  told  him  in 
a  moment,  abruptly,  that  his  step-brother  would  do 
well  to  remain  away  altogether  in  future ;  it  was  a 
farce  his  pretending  to  make  my  cousin  reconsider 
her  answer. 

"  Why,  then,  did  she  ask  him  to  come  down  here  ? " 
He  launched  this  inquiry  with  confidence. 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  91 

"  Because  she  thought  it  would  be  pleasant  to  have 
a  man  in  the  house ;  and  Mr.  Frank  is  such  a  harm- 
less, discreet,  accommodating  one." 

"  Why,  then,  do  you  object  to  his  coming  back  ? " 

He  had  made  me  contradict  myself  a  little,  and  of 
course  he  enjoyed  that.  I  was  confused  —  confused 
by  my  agitation ;  and  I  made  the  matter  worse.  I 
was  furious  that  Eunice  had  made  me  promise  not  to 
speak,  and  my  anger  blinded  me,  as  great  anger  always 
does,  save  in  organizations  as  fine  as  Mr.  Caliph's. 

"  Because  Eunice  is  in  no  condition  to  have  com- 
pany. She  is  very  ill ;  you  can  see  for  yourself." 

"Very  ill?  with  a  garden-party  and  a  band  of 
music  !  Why,  then,  did  she  invite  us  all  ? " 

"  Because  she  is  a  little  crazy,  I  think." 

"  You  are  very  consistent ! "  he  cried  with  a  laugh. 
"  I  know  people  who  think  every  one  crazy  but  them- 
selves. I  have  had  occasion  to  talk  business  with 
her  several  times  of  late,  and  I  find  her  mind  as  clear 
as  a  belL" 

"  I  wonder  if  you  will  allow  me  to  say  that  you 
talk  business  too  much  ?  Let  me  give  you  a  word  of 
advice :  wind  up  her  affairs  at  once  without  any  more 
procrastination,  and  place  them  in  her  own  hands. 
She  is  very  nervous ;  she  knows  this  ought  to  have 
been  done  already.  I  recommend  you  strongly  to 
make  an  end  of  the  matter." 

I  had  no  idea  I  could  be  so  insolent,  even  in  con- 
versation with  a  swindler.  I  confess  I  did  n't  do  it 
so  well  as  I  might,  for  my  voice  trembled  perceptibly 


92  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

in  the  midst  of  my  efforts  to  be  calm.  He  had 
picked  up  two  or  three  stones  and  was  tossing  them 
into  the  river,  making  them  skim  the  surface  for  a 
long  distance.  He  held  one  poised  a  moment,  turn- 
ing his  eye  askance  on  me  ;  then  he  let  it  fly,  and  it 
danced  for  a  hundred  yards.  I  wondered  whether  in 
what  I  had  just  said  I  broke  my  vow  to  Eunice ;  and 
it  seemed  to  me  that  I  didn't,  inasmuch  as  I  ap- 
peared to  assume  that  no  irreparable  wrong  had  been 
done  her. 

"  Do  you  wish  yourself  to  get  control  of  her  prop- 
erty ? "  Mr.  Caliph  inquired,  after  he  had  made  his 
stone  skim.  It  was  magnificently  said,  far  better 
than  anything  I  could  do ;  and  I  think  I  answered  it 
—  though  it  made  my  heart  beat  fast  —  almost  with 
a  smile  of  applause. 

"  Are  n't  you  afraid  ? "  I  asked  in  a  moment,  very 
gently. 

"  Afraid  of  what,  —  of  you  ? " 

"Afraid  of  justice  —  of  Eunice's  friends  ? " 

"That  means  you,  of  course.  Yes,  I  am  very 
much  afraid.  When  was  a  man  not,  in  the  presence 
of  a  clever  woman  ? " 

"  I  am  clever ;  but  I  am  not  clever  enough.  If  I 
were,  you  should  have  no  doubt  of  it." 

He  folded  his  arms  as  he  stood  there  before  me, 
looking  at  me  in  that  way  I  have  mentioned  more 
than  once  —  like  a  genial  Mephistopheles.  "  I  must 
repeat  what  I  have  already  told  you,  that  I  wish  I  had 
known  you  ten  years  ago  ! " 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  93 

"  How  you  must  hate  me  to  say  that ! "  I  exclaimed. 
"That's  some  comfort,  just  a  little  —  your  hating 
me." 

"  I  can't  tell  you  how  it  makes  me  feel  to  see  you 
so  indiscreet,"  he  went  on,  as  if  he  had  not  heard  me. 
"Ah,  my  dear  lady,  don't  meddle  —  a  woman  like 
you  !  Think  of  the  bad  taste  of  it." 

"  It 's  bad  if  you  like ;  but  yours  is  far  worse." 

"  Mine  !  What  do  you  know  about  mine  ?  What 
do  you  know  about  me?  See  how  superficial  it 
makes  you."  He  paused  a  moment,  smiling  almost 
compassionately ;  and  then  he  said,  with  an  abrupt 
change  of  tone  and  manner,  as  if  our  conversation 
wearied  him  and  he  wished  to  sum  up  and  return  to 
the  house,  "  See  that  she  marries  Adrian ;  that 's  all 
you  have  to  do  ! " 

"  That 's  a  beautiful  idea  of  yours  !  You  know  you 
don't  believe  in  it  yourself!"  These  words  broke 
from  me  as  he  turned  away,  and  we  ascended  the  hill 
together. 

"  It 's  the  only  thing  I  believe  in,"  he  answered, 
very  gravely. 

"  What  a  pity  for  you  that  your  brother  does  n't ! 
For  he  doesn't  —  I  persist  in  that!"  I  said  this 
because  it  seemed  to  me  just  then  to  be  the  thing  I 
could  think  of  that  would  exasperate  him  most.  The 
event  proved  I  was  right. 

He  stopped  short  in  the  path  —  gave  me  a  very 
bad  look.  "  Do  you  want  him  for  yourself  ?  Have 
you  been  making  love  to  him  ?  " 


94  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"Ah,  Mr.  Caliph,  for  a  man  who  talks  about  taste  !  " 
I  answered. 

"  Taste  be  damned  !  "  cried  Mr.  Caliph,  as  we  went 
on  again. 

"  That 's  quite  my  idea  !  "  He  broke  into  an  un- 
expected laugh,  as  if  I  had  said  something  very 
amusing,  and  we  proceeded  in  silence  to  the  top  of 
the  hill.  Then  I  suddenly  said  to  him,  as  we  emerged 
upon  the  lawn,  "  Are  n't  you  really  a  little  afraid  ?  " 

He  stopped  again,  looking  toward  the  house  and 
at  the  brilliant  groups  with  which  the  lawn  was 
covered.  We  had  lost  the  music,  but  we  began  to 
hear  it  again.  "Afraid  ?  of  course  I  am  !  I  'in  im- 
mensely afraid.  It  comes  over  me  in  such  a  scene 
as  this.  But  I  don't  see  what  good  it  does  you  to 
know." 

"  It  makes  me  rather  happy."  That  was  a  fib ;  for 
it  did  n't,  somehow,  when  he  looked  and  talked  in 
that  way.  He  has  an  absolutely  bottomless  power 
of  mockery;  and  really,  absurd  as  it  appears,  for 
that  instant  I  had  a  feeling  that  it  was  quite  mag- 
nanimous of  him  not  to  let  me  know  what  he  thought 
of  my  idiotic  attempt  to  frighten  him.  He  feels  strong 
and  safe  somehow,  somewhere ;  but  I  can't  discover 
why  he  should,  inasmuch  as  he  certainly  does  n't 
know  Eunice's  secret,  and  it  is  only  her  state  of  mind 
that  gives  him  impunity.  He  believes  her  to  be 
merely  credulous ;  convinced  by  his  specious  argu- 
ments that  everything  will  be  right  in  a  few  months ; 
a  little  nervous,  possibly  —  to  justify  my  account 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  95 

of  her  —  but  for  the  present,  at  least,  completely  at 
his  mercy.  The  present,  of  course,  is  only  what  now 
concerns  him ;  for  the  future  he  has  invented  Adrian 
Frank.  How  he  clings  to  this  invention  was  proved 
by  the  last  words  he  said  to  me  before  we  separated 
on  the  lawn ;  they  almost  indicate  that  he  has  a 
conscience,  and  this  is  so  extraordinary — 

"She  must  marry  Adrian!  She  must  marry 
Adrian!" 

With  this  he  turned  away  and  went  to  talk  to 
various  people  whom  he  knew.  He  talked  to  every 
one ;  diffused  his  genial  influence  all  over  the  place, 
and  contributed  greatly  to  the  brilliancy  of  the  occa- 
sion. I  had  n't  therefore  the  comfort  of  feeling  that 
Mrs.  Ermine  was  more  of  a  waterspout  than  usual, 
when  she  said  to  me  afterwards  that  Mr.  Caliph  was 
a  man  to  adore,  and  that  the  party  would  have  been 
quite  "  ordinary  "  without  him.  "  I  mean  in  compari- 
son, you  know."  And  then  she  said  to  me  suddenly, 
with  her  blank  impertinence:  "Why  don't  you  set 
your  cap  at  him  ?  I  should  think  you  would  !" 

"  Is  it  possible  you  have  not  observed  my  frantic 
efforts  to  captivate  him  ? "  I  answered.  "  Did  n't  you 
notice  how  I  drew  him  away  and  made  him  walk 
with  me  by  the  river  ?  It 's  too  soon  to  say,  but  I 
really  think  I  am  gaining  ground."  For  so  mild  a 
pleasure  it  really  pays  to  mystify  Mrs.  Ermine !  I 
kept  away  from  Eunice  till  almost  every  one  had 
gone.  I  knew  that  she  would  look  at  me  in  a  certain 
way,  and  I  did  n't  wish  to  meet  her  eyes.  I  have  a 


96  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

bad  conscience,  for  turn  it  as  I  would  I  had  broken 
my  vow.  Mr.  Caliph  went  away  without  my  meet- 
ing him  again ;  but  I  saw  that  half  an  hour  before  he 
left  he  strolled  to  a  distance  with  Eunice.  I  instantly 
guessed  what  his  business  was ;  he  had  made  up  his 
mind  to  present  to  her  directly,  and  in  person,  the 
question  of  her  marrying  his  step-brother.  What  a 
happy  inspiration,  and  what  a  well-selected  occasion  ! 
When  she  came  back  I  saw  that  she  had  been  crying, 
though  I  imagine  no  one  else  did.  I  know  the  signs 
of  her  tears,  even  when  she  has  checked  them  as 
quickly  as  she  must  have  done  to-day.  Whatever 
it  was  that  had  passed  between  them,  it  diverted  her 
from  looking  at  me,  when  we  were  alone  together,  in 
that  way  I  was  afraid  of.  Mrs.  Ermine  is  prolific ; 
there  is  no  end  to  the  images  that  succeed  each  other 
in  her  mind.  Late  in  the  evening,  after  the  last  car- 
riage had  rolled  away,  we  went  up  the  staircase  to- 
gether, and  at  the  top  she  detained  me  a  moment. 

"  I  have  been  thinking  it  over,  and  I  am  afraid  that 
there  is  no  chance  for  you.  I  have  reason  to  believe 
that  he  proposed  to-day  to  Eunice  !  " 

August  19.  Eunice  is  very  ill,  as  I  was  sure  she 
would  be,  after  the  effort  of  her  horrible  festival. 
She  kept  going  for  three  days  more ;  then  she  broke 
down  completely,  and  for  a  week  now  she  has  been 
in  bed.  I  have  had  no  time  to  write,  for  I  have  been 
constantly  with  her  in  alternation  with  Mrs.  Ermine. 
Mrs.  Ermine  was  about  to  leave  us  after  the  garden- 
party,  but  when  Eunice  gave  up  she  announced  that 


THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN.  97 

she  would  stay  and  take  care  of  her.  Eunice  tells 
me  that  she  is  a  good  nurse,  except  that  she  talks  too 
much,  and  of  course  she  gives  me  a  chance  to  rest. 
Eunice's  condition  is  strange  ;  she  has  no  fever,  but 
her  life  seems  to  have  ebbed  away.  She  lies  with  her 
eyes  shut,  perfectly  conscious,  answering  when  she 
is  spoken  to,  but  immersed  in  absolute  rest.  It  is 
as  if  she  had  had  some  terrible  strain  or  fatigue, 
and  wished  to  steep  herself  in  oblivion.  I  am  not 
anxious  about  her  —  am  much  less  frightened  than 
Mrs.  Ermine  or  the  doctor,  to  whom  she  is  appar- 
ently dying  of  weakness.  I  tell  the  doctor  I  under- 
stand her  condition  —  I  have  seen  her  so  before.  It 
will  last  probably  a  month,  and  then  she  will  slowly 
pull  herself  together.  The  poor  man  accepts  this 
theory  for  want  of  a  better,  and  evidently  depends 
upon  me  to  see  her  through,  as  he  says.  Mrs. 
Ermine  wishes  to  send  for  one  of  the  great  men  from 
New  York,  but  I  have  opposed  this  idea,  and  shall 
continue  to  oppose  it.  There  is  (to  my  mind)  a  kind 
of  cruelty  in  exhibiting  the  poor  girl  to  more  people 
than  are  absolutely  necessary.  The  dullest  of  them 
would  see  that  she  is  in  love.  The  seat  of  her  illness 
is  in  her  mind,  in  her  soul,  and  no  rude  hands  must 
touch  her  there.  She  herself  has  protested  —  she 
has  murmured  a  prayer  that  she  may  be  forced  to 
see  no  one  else.  "  I  only  want  to  be  left  alone  —  to 
be  left  alone."  So  we  leave  her  alone  —  that  is,  we 
simply  watch  and  wait.  She  will  recover  —  people 
don't  die  of  these  things ;  she  will  live  to  suffer  — 

7 


98  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

to  suffer  always.  I  am  tired  to-night,  but  Mrs. 
Ermine  is  with  her,  and  I  shall  not  be  wanted  till 
morning ;  therefore,  before  I  lie  down,  I  will  repair 
in  these  remarkable  pages  a  serious  omission.  I 
scarcely  know  why  I  should  have  written  all  this, 
except  that  the  history  of  things  interests  me,  and  I 
find  that  it  is  even  a  greater  pleasure  to  write  it  than 
to  read  it.  If  what  I  have  committed  to  this  little 
book  hitherto  has  not  been  profitless,  I  must  make  a 
note  of  an  incident  which  I  think  more  curious  than 
any  of  the  scenes  I  have  described. 

Adrian  Frank  reappeared  the  day  after  the  garden- 
party —  late  in  the  afternoon,  while  I  sat  in  the  ve- 
randah and  watched  the  sunset,  and  Eunice  strolled 
down  to  the  river  with  Mrs.  Ermine.  I  had  heard 
no  sound  of  wheels,  and  there  was  no  evidence  of  a 
vehicle  or  of  luggage.  He  had  not  come  through  the 
house,  but  walked  round  it  from  the  front,  having 
apparently  been  told  by  one  of  the  servants  that  we 
were  in  the  grounds.  On  seeing  me  he  stopped,  hesi- 
tated a  moment,  then  came  up  to  the  steps,  shook 
hands  in  silence,  seated  himself  near  me  and  looked 
at  me  through  the  dusk.  This  was  all  tolerably 
mysterious,  and  it  was  even  more  so  after  he  had 
explained  a  little.  I  told  him  that  he  was  a  "  day 
after  the  fair ; "  that  he  had  been  considerably  missed, 
and  even  that  he  was  slightly  wanting  in  respect  to 
Eunice.  Since  he  had  absented  himself  from  her 
party,  it  was  not  quite  delicate  to  assume  that  she 
was  ready  to  receive  him  at  his  own  time.  I  don't 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.  99 

know  what  made  me  so  truculent  —  as  if  there  were 
any  danger  of  his  having  really  not  considered  us,  or 
his  lacking  a  good  reason.  It  was  simply,  I  think, 
that  my  talk  with  Mr.  Caliph  the  evening  before  had 
made  me  so  much  bad  blood,  and  left  me  in  a  savage 
mood.  Mr.  Frank  answered  that  he  had  not  stayed 
away  by  accident  —  he  had  stayed  away  on  purpose  ; 
he  had  been  for  several  days  at  Saratoga,  and  on  re- 
turning to  Cornerville  had  taken  quarters  at  the  inn 
in  the  village.  He  had  no  intention  of  presuming 
further  on  Eunice's  hospitality,  and  had  walked  over 
from  the  hotel  simply  to  bid  us  good-evening  and 
give  an  account  of  himself. 

"  My  dear  Mr.  Frank,  your  account  is  not  clear  ! "  I 
said,  laughing.  "  What  in  the  world  were  you  doing 
at  Saratoga  ? "  I  must  add  that  his  humility  had 
completely  disarmed  me ;  I  was  ashamed  of  the  bru- 
tality with  which  I  had  received  him,  and  convinced 
afresh  that  he  was  the  best  fellow  in  the  world. 

"What  was  I  doing  at  Saratoga?  I  was  trying 
hard  to  forget  you ! " 

This  was  Mr.  Frank's  rejoinder ;  and  I  give  it  ex- 
actly as  he  uttered  it ;  or  rather  not  exactly,  inasmuch 
as  I  cannot  give  the  tone  —  the  quick,  startling 
tremor  of  his  voice.  But  those  are  the  words  with 
which  he  answered  my  superficially-intended  ques- 
tion. I  saw  in  a  moment  that  he  meant  a  great  deal 
by  them  —  I  became  aware  that  we  were  suddenly 
in  deep  waters;  that  he  was,  at  least,,  and  that  he 
was  trying  to  draw  me  into  the  stream.  My  surprise 


100         THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

was  immense,  complete  ;  I  had  absolutely  not  sus- 
pected what  he  went  on  to  say  to  me.  He  said 
many  things  —  but  I  need  n't  write  them  here.  It 
is  not  in  detail  that  I  see  the  propriety  of  narrating 
this  incident ;  I  suppose  a  woman  may  be  trusted  to 
remember  the  form  of  such  assurances.  Let  me 
simply  say  that  the  poor  dear  young  man  has  an 
idea  that  he  wants  to  marry  me.  For  a  moment, 
— just  a  moment  —  I  thought  he  was  jesting;  then 
I  saw,  in  the  twilight,  that  he  was  pale  with  seri- 
ousness. He  is  perfectly  sincere.  It  is  strange,  but 
it  is  real,  and,  moreover,  it  is  his  own  affair.  For 
myself,  when  I  have  said  I  was  amazed,  I  have  said 
everything ;  en  Ute-a-iSte  with  myself  I  need  n't  blush 
and  protest.  I  was  not  in  the  least  annoyed  or 
alarmed  ;  I  was  filled  with  kindness  and  consideration, 
and  I  was  extremely  interested.  He  talked  to  me  for  a 
quarter  of  an  hour  ;  it  seemed  a  very  long  time.  I 
asked  him  to  go  away;  not  to  wait  till  Eunice  and 
Mrs.  Ermine  should  come  back.  Of  course  I  refused 
him,  by  the  way. 

It  was  the  last  thing  I  was  expecting  at  this 
time  of  day,  and  it  gave  me  a  great  deal  to  think 
of.  I  lay  awake  that  night ;  I  found  I  was  more  agi- 
tated than  I  supposed,  and  all  sorts  of  visions  came 
and  went  in  my  head.  I  shall  not  marry  the  young 
Adrian :  I  am  bound  to  say  thaj;  vision  was  not  one 
of  them ;  but  as  I  thought  over  what  he  had  said  to 
me  it  became  more  clear,  more  conceivable.  I  began 
now  to  be  a  little  surprised  at  my  surprise.  It  ap- 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.          101 

pears  that  I  have  had  the  honor  to  please  him  from 
the  first ;  when  he  began  to  come  to  see  us  it  was 
not  for  Eunice,  it  was  for  me.  He  made  a  general 
confession  on  this  subject.  He  was  afraid  of  me  ;  he 
thought  me  proud,  sarcastic,  cold,  a  hundred  horrid 
things ;  it  did  n't  seem  to  him  possible  that  we  should 
ever  be  on  a  footing  of  familiarity  which  would 
enable  him  to  propose  to  me.  He  regarded  me,  in 
short,  as  unattainable,  out  of  the  question,  and  made 
up  his  mind  to  admire  me  forever  in  silence.  (In 
plain  English,  I  suppose,  he  thought  I  was  too  old,  and 
he  has  simply  got  used  to  the  difference  in  our  years.) 
But  he  wished  to  be  near  me,  to  see  me,  and  hear  me 
(I  am  really  writing  more  details  than  seem  worth 
while)  ;  so  that  when  his  step-brother  recommended 
him  to  try  and  marry  Eunice,  he  jumped  at  the  oppor- 
tunity to  make  good  his  place.  This  situation  recon- 
ciled everything.  He  could  oblige  his  brother,  he 
could  pay  a  high  compliment  to  my  cousin,  and  he 
could  see  me  every  day  or  two.  He  was  convinced 
from  the  first  that  he  was  in  no  danger ;  he  was  mor- 
ally sure  that  Eunice  would  never  smile  upon  his 
suit.  He  didn't  know  why,  and  he  doesn't  know 
why  yet;  it  was  only  an  instinct.  That  suit  was 
avowedly  perfunctory;  still  the  young  Adrian  has 
been  a  great  comedian.  He  assured  me  that  if  he 
had  proved  to  be  wrong,  and  Eunice  had  suddenly 
accepted  him,  he  would  have  gone  with  her  to  the 
altar  and  made  her  an  excellent  husband;  for  he 
would  have  acquired  in  this  manner  the  certainty  of 


102          THE  IMPRESSIONS   OF  A   COUSIN. 

seeing  for  the  rest  of  his  life  a  great  deal  of  ine  !  To 
think  of  one's  possessing,  all  unexpected,  this  miracu- 
lous influence !  When  he  came  down  here,  after 
Eunice  had  refused  him,  it  was  simply  for.  the  pleas- 
ure of  living  in  the  house  with  me ;  from  that  mo- 
ment there  was  no  comedy — everything  was  clear 
and  comfortable  betwixt  him  and  Eunice.  I  asked 
him  if  he  meant  by  this  that  she  knew  of  the  senti- 
ments he  entertained  for  her  companion,  and  he  an- 
swered that  he  had  never  breathed  a  word  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  flattered  himself  that  lie  had  kept  the  thing 
dark.  He  had  no  reason  to  believe  that  she  guessed 
his  motives,  and  I  may  add  that  I  have  none  either ; 
they  are  altogether  too  extraordinary  !  As  I  have 
said,  it  was  simply  time,  and  the  privilege  of  seeing 
more  of  me,  that  had  dispelled  his  hesitation.  I 
did  n't  reason  with  him,  and  though  once  I  was  fairly 
enlightened  I  gave  him  the  most  respectful  attention, 
I  did  n't  appear  to  consider  his  request  too.  seriously. 
But  I  did  touch  upon  the  fact  that  I  am  five  or  six 
years  older  than  he  :  I  suppose  I  need  n't  mention  that 
it  was  not  in  a  spirit  of  coquetry.  His  rejeinder  was 
very  gallant;  but  it  belongs  to  the  class  of  details. 
He  is  really  in  love,  —  heaven  forgive  him !  but  I 
shall  not  marry  him.  How  strange  are  the  passions 
of  men! 

I  saw  Mr.  Frank  the  next  day ;  I  had  given  him 
leave  to  come  back  at  noon.  He  joined  me  in  the 
grounds,  where  as  usual  I  had  set  up  my  easel.  I 
left  it  to  his  discretion  to  call  first  at  the  house  and 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.          103 

explain  both  his  absence  and  his  presence  to  Eunice 
and  Mrs.  Ermine  —  the  latter  especially — ignorant 
as  yet  of  his  visit  the  night  before,  of  which  I  had  not 
spoken  to  them.  He  sat  down  beside  me  on  a  garden- 
chair  and  watched  me  as  I  went  on  with  my  work. 
For  half  an  hour  very  few  words  passed  between  us ; 
I  felt  that  he  was  happy  to  sit  there,  to  be  near  me, 
to  see  me  —  strange  as  it  seems!  and  for  myself 
tli ere  was  a  certain  sweetness  in  knowing  it,  though 
it  was  the  sweetness  of  charity,  not  of  elation  or  tri- 
umph. He  must  have  seen  I  was  only  pretending  to 
paint  —  if  he  followed  my  brush,  which  I  suppose  he 
did  n't.  My  mind  was  full  of  a  determination  I  had 
arrived  at  after  many  waverings  in  the  hours  of  the 
night.  It  had  come  to  me  toward  morning  as  a  kind 
of  inspiration.  I  could  never  marry  him,  but  was 
there  not  some  way  in  which  I  could  utilize  his  de- 
votion ?  At  the  present  moment,  only  forty-eight 
hours  later,  it  seems  strange,  unreal,  almost  gro- 
tesque ;  but  for  ten  minutes  I  thought  I  saw  the  light. 
As  we  sat  there  under  the  great  trees,  in  the  still- 
ness of  the  noon,  I  suddenly  turned  and  said  to 
him  — 

"I  thank  you  for  everything  you  have  told  me; 
it  gives  me  very  nearly  all  the  pleasure  you  could 
wish.  I  believe  in  you;  I  accept  every  assurance 
of  your  devotion.  I  think  that  devotion  is  capable 
of  going  very  far ;  and  I  am  going  to  put  it  to  a  tre- 
mendous test,  one  of  the  greatest,  probably,  to  which 
a  man  was  ever  subjected." 


104  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

He  stared,  leaning  forward,  with  his  hands  on  his 
knees.  "  Any  test  —  any  test  —  "  he  murmured. 

"  Don't  give  up  Eunice,  then ;  make  another  trial ; 
I  wish  her  to  marry  you ! " 

My  words  may  have  sounded  like  an  atrocious 
joke,  but  they  represented  for  me  a  great  deal  of  hope 
and  cheer.  They  brought  a  deep  blush  into  Adrian 
Frank's  face ;  he  winced  a  little,  as  if  he  had  been 
struck  by  a  hand  whose  blow  he  could  not  return, 
and  the  tears  suddenly  started  to  his  eyes.  "Oh, 
Miss  Condit!"  he  exclaimed. 

What  I  saw  before  me  was  bright  and  definite ;  his 
distress  seemed  to  me  no  obstacle,  and  I  went  on  with 
a  serenity  of  which  I  longed  to  make  him  perceive 
the  underlying  support.  "  Of  course  what  I  say  seems 
to  you  like  a  deliberate  insult ;  but  nothing  would  in- 
duce me  to  give  you  pain  if  it  were  possible  to  spare 
you.  But  it  is  n't  possible,  my  dear  friend ;  it  is  n't 
possible.  There  is  pain  for  you  in  the  best  thing  I 
can  say  to  you ;  there  are  situations  in  life  in  which 
we  can  only  accept  our  pain.  I  can  never  marry 
you ;  I  shall  never  marry  any  one.  I  am  an  old  maid, 
and  how  can  an  old  maid  have  a  husband  ?  I  will  be 
your  friend,  your  sister,  your  brother,  your  mother, 
but  I  will  never  be  your  wife.  I  should  like  im- 
mensely to  be  your  brother ;  for  I  don't  like  the 
brother  you  have  got,  and  I  think  you  deserve  a 
better  one.  I  believe,  as  I  tell  you,  in  everything  you 
have  said  to  me  —  in  your  affection,  your  tenderness, 
your  honesty,  the  full  consideration  you  have  given 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.          105 

to  the  whole  matter.  I  am  happier  and  richer  for 
knowing  it  all ;  and  I  can  assure  you  that  it  gives 
something  to  life  which  life  did  n't  have  before.  We 
shall  be  good  friends,  dear  friends,  always,  whatever 
happens.  But  I  can't  be  your  wife  —  I  want  you 
for  some  one  else.  You  will  say  I  have  changed  — 
that  I  ought  to  have  spoken  in  this  way  three  months 
ago.  But  I  haven't  changed  —  it  is  circumstances 
that  have  changed.  I  see  reasons  for  your  marrying 
my  cousin  that  I  did  n't  see  then.  I  can't  say  that 
she  will  listen  to  you  now,  any  more  than  she  did 
then  ;  I  don't  speak  of  her ;  I  speak  only  of  you  and  of 
myself.  I  wish  you  to  make  another  attempt ;  and  I 
wish  you  to  make  it,  this  time,  with  my  full  confi- 
dence and  support.  Moreover,  I  attach  a  condition  to 
it,  —  a  condition  I  will  tell  you  presently.  Do  you 
think  me  slightly  demented,  malignantly  perverse, 
atrociously  cruel  ?  If  you  could  see  the  bottom  of  my 
heart  you  would  find  something  there  which,  I  think, 
would  almost  give  you  joy.  To  ask  you  to  do  some- 
thing you  don't  want  to  do  as  a  substitute  for  some- 
thing you  desire,  and  to  attach  to  the  hard  achieve- 
ment a  condition  which  will  require  a  good  deal  of 
thinking  of  and  will  certainly  make  it  harder  —  you 
may  well  believe  I  have  some  extraordinary  reason 
for  taking  such  a  line  as  this.  For  remember,  to 
begin  with,  that  I  can  never  marry  you." 

"  Never — never  —  never  ?  " 

"  Never,  never,  never." 

"  And  what  is  your  extraordinary  reason  ?  " 


106          THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  Simply  that  I  wish  Eunice  to  have  your  protec- 
tion, your  kindness,  your  fortune." 

"  My  fortune  ? " 

"  She  has  lost  her  own.     She  will  be  poor." 

"  Pray,  how  has  she  lost  it  ?  "  the  poor  fellow  asked, 
beginning  to  frown,  and  more  and  more  bewildered. 

"I  can't  tell  you  that,  and  you  must  never  ask. 
But  the  fact  is  certain.  The  greater  part  of  her 
property  has  gone ;  she  has  known  it  for  some  little 
time." 

"  For  some  little  time  ?  Why,  she  never  showed 
any  change." 

"  You  never  saw  it,  that  was  all !  You  were  think- 
ing of  me,"  and  I  believe  I  accompanied  this  remark 
with  a  smile  —  a  smile  which  was  most  inconsiderate, 
for  it  could  only  mystify  him  more. 

I  think  at  first  he  scarcely  believed  me.  "  What  a 
singular  time  to  choose  to  give  a  large  party ! "  he  ex- 
claimed, looking  at  me  with  eyes  quite  unlike  his  old 
—  or  rather  his  young  —  ones;  eyes  that,  instead  of 
overlooking  half  the  things  before  them  (which  was 
their  former  habit),  tried  to  see  a  great  deal  more  in 
rny  face,  in  my  words,  than  was  visible  on  the  surface. 
I  don't  know  what  poor  Adrian  Frank  saw  —  I  shall 
never  know  all  that  he  saw. 

"I  agree  with  you  that  it  was  a  very  singular 
time,"  I  said.  "You  don't  understand  me — you 
can't  —  I  don't  expect  you  to  ; "  I  went  on.  "  That 
is  what  I  mean  by  devotion,  and  that  is  the  kind  of 
appeal  I  make  to  you :  to  take  me  on  trust,  to  act 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.          107 

in  the  dark,  to  do  something  simply  because  I  wish 
it." 

He  looked  at  me  aa_if  he  would  fathom  the  depths 
of  my  soul,  and  my  soul  had  never  seemed  to  myself 
so  deep.  "  To  marry  your  cousin,  —  that 's  all  ?  "  he 
said,  with  a  strange  little  laugh. 

"  Oh,  no,  it 's  not  all :  to  be  very  kind  to  her  as 
well." 

"  To  give  her  plenty  of  money,  above  all  ? " 

"  You  make  me  feel  very  ridiculous  ;  but  I  should 
not  make  this  request  of  you  if  you  had  not  a  fortune." 

"  She  can  have  my  money  without  marrying  me." 

"  That 's  absurd.  How  could  she  take  your 
money  ? " 

"  How,  then,  can  she  take  me  ? " 

"  That 's  exactly  what  I  wish  to  see.  I  told  you 
with  my  own  lips,  weeks  ago,  that  she  would  only 
marry  a  man  she  should  love ;  and  I  may  seem  to 
contradict  myself  in  taking  up  now  a  supposition 
so  different.  But,  as  I  tell  you,  everything  has 
changed." 

"  You  think  her  capable,  in  other  words,  of  marry- 
ing for  money." 

"  For  money  ?  Is  your  money  all  there  is  of  you  ? 
Is  there  a  better  fellow  than  you  —  is  there  a  more 
perfect  gentleman  ? " 

He  turned  away  his  face  at  this,  leaned  it  in  his 
hands,  and  groaned.  I  pitied  him,  but  I  wonder  now 
that  I  should  n't  have  pitied  him  more  ;  that  my  pity 
should  not  have  checked  me.  But  I  was  too  full  of 


108          THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN. 

my  idea.  "  It 's  like  a  fate,"  he  murmured  ;  "  first 
my  brother,  and  then  you.  I  can't  understand." 

"Yes,  I  know  your  brother  wants  it — wants  it 
now  more  than  ever.  But  I  don't  care  what  your 
brother  wants ;  and  my  idea  is  entirely  independent 
of  his.  I  have  not  the  least  conviction  that  you  will 
succeed  at  first  any  better  than  you  have  done  already. 
But  it  may  be  only  a  question  of  time,  if  you  will 
wait  and  watch,  and  let  me  help  you.  You  know 
you  asked  me  to  help  you  before,  and  then  I  would  n't. 
But  I  repeat  it  again  and  again,  at  present  everything 
is  changed.  Let  me  wait  with  you,  let  me  watch 
with  you.  If  you  succeed,  you  will  be  very  dear  to 
me  ;  if  you  fail,  you  will  be  still  more  so.  You  see 
it 's  an  act  of  devotion,  if  there  ever  was  one.  I  am 
quite  aware  that  I  ask  of  you  something  unprece- 
dented and  extraordinary.  Oh,  it  may  easily  be  too 
much  for  you.  I  can  only  put  it  before  you  —  that 's 
all ;  and  as  I  say,  I  can  help  you.  You  will  both  be 
my  children  —  I  shall  be  near  you  always.  If  you 
can't  marry  me,  perhaps  you  will  make  up  your  mind 
that  this  is  the  next  best  thing.  You  know  you  said 
that  last  night,  yourself." 

He  had  begun  to  listen  to  me  a  little,  as  if  he  were 
being  persuaded.  "  Of  course,  I  should  let  her  know 
that  I  love  you." 

"  She  is  capable  of  saying  that  you  can't  love  me 
more  than  she  does." 

"  I  don't  believe  she  is  capable  of  saying  any  such 
folly.  But  we  shall  see." 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.          109 

"Yes;  but  not  to-day,  not  to-morrow.  Not  at 
all  for  the  present.  You  must  wait  a  great  many 
months." 

"  I  will  wait  as  long  as  you  please." 

"  And  you  must  n't  say  a  word  to  me  of  the  kind 
you  said  last  night." 

"  Is  that  your  condition  ? " 

"  Oh,  no ;  my  condition  is  a  very  different  matter, 
and  very  difficult.  It  will  probably  spoil  everything." 

"  Please,  then,  let  me  hear  it  at  once." 

"  It  is  very  hard  for  me  to  mention  it ;  you  must 
give  me  time."  I  turned  back  to  my  little  easel  and 
began  to  daub  again ;  but  I  think  my  hand  trembled, 
for  my  heart  was  beating  fast.  There  was  a  silence 
of  many  moments ;  I  could  n't  make  up  my  mind  to 
speak. 

"  How  in  the  world  has  she  lost  her  money  ? "  Mr. 
Frank  asked,  abruptly,  as  if  the  question  had  just 
come  into  his  mind.  "  Has  n't  my  brother  the  charge 
of  her  affairs  ? " 

"  Mr.  Caliph  is  her  trustee.  I  can't  tell  you  how 
the  losses  have  occurred." 

He  got  up  quickly.  "  Do  you  mean  that  they  have 
occurred  through  him  ?  " 

I  looked  up  at  him,  and  there  was  something  in 
his  face  which  made  me  leave  my  work  and  rise  also. 
"  I  will  tell  you  my  condition  now,"  I  said.  "  It  is 
that  you  should  ask  no  questions  —  not  one  ! "  This 
was  not  what  I  had  had  in  my  mind ;  but  I  had  not 
courage  for  more,  and  this  had  to  serve. 


110          THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

He  had  turned  very  pale,  and  I  laid  my  hand  on 
his  arm,  while  he  looked  at  me  as  if  he  wished  to 
wrest  my  secret  out  of  my  eyes.  My  secret,  I  call  it, 
by  courtesy ;  God  knows  I  had  come  terribly  near 
telling  it.  God  will  forgive  me,  but  Eunice  probably 
will  not.  Had  I  broken  my  vow,  or  had  I  kept  it  ? 
I  asked  myself  this,  and  the  answer,  so  far  as  I  read 
it  in  Mr.  Frank's  eyes,  was  not  reassuring.  I  dreaded 
his  next  question ;  but  when  it  came  it  was  not  what 
I  had  expected.  Something  violent  took  place  in  his 
own  mind  —  something  I  could  n't  follow. 

"If  I  do  what  you  ask  me,  what  will  be  my 
reward  ? " 

"  You  will  make  me  very  happy." 

"  And  what  shall  I  make  your  cousin  ?  —  God 
help  us!" 

"  Less  wretched  than  she  is  to-day." 

"  Is  she '  wretched '  ? "  he  asked,  frowning  as  he  did 
before  —  a  most  distressing  change  in  his  fair  coun- 
tenance. 

"Ah,  when  I  think  that  I  have  to  tell  you  that  — 
that  you  have  never  noticed  it  —  I  despair!"  I  ex- 
claimed with  a  laugh. 

I  had  laid  my  hand  on  his  arm,  and  he  placed  his 
right  hand  upon  it,  holding  it  there.  He  kept  it 
a  moment  in  his  grasp,  and  then  he  said,  "Don't 
despair ! " 

"Promise  me  to  wait,"  I  answered.  "Everything 
is  in  your  waiting." 

"I  promise  you!"     After  which  he  asked  me  to 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.         Ill 

kiss  him,  and  I  did  so,  on  the  lips.  It  was  as  if  he  were 
starting  on  a  journey  —  leaving  me  for  a  long  time. 

"  Will  you  come  when  I  send  for  you  ? "  I  asked. 

"I  adore  you!"  he  said;  and  he  turned  quickly 
away,  to  leave  the  place  without  going  near  the 
house.  I  watched  him,  and  in  a  moment  he  was 
gone.  He  has  not  reappeared ;  and  when  I  found, 
at  lunch,  that  neither  Eunice  nor  Mrs.  Ermine  alluded 
to  his  visit,  I  determined  to  keep  the  matter  to  my- 
self. I  said  nothing  about  it,  and  up  to  the  moment 
Eunice  was  taken  ill  —  the  next  evening  —  he  was 
not  mentioned  between  us.  I  believe  Mrs.  Ermine 
more  than  once  gave  herself  up  to  wonder  as  to  his 
whereabouts,  and  declared  that  he  had  not  the  perfect 
manners  of  his  step-brother,  who  was  a  religious  ob- 
server of  the  convenances ;  but  I  think  I  managed  to 
listen  without  confusion.  Nevertheless,  I  had  a  bad 
conscience,  and  I  have  it  still  It  throbs  a  good  deal 
as  I  sit  there  with  Eunice  in  her  darkened  room.  I 
have  given  her  away ;  I  have  broken  my  vow.  But 
what  I  wrote  above  is  not  true ;  she  will  forgive  me ! 
I  sat  at  my  easel  for  an  hour  after  Mr.  Frank  left  me, 
and  then  suddenly  I  found  that  I  had  cured  myself 
of  my  folly  by  giving  it  out.  It  was  the  result  of  a 
sudden  passion  of  desire  to  do  something  for  Eunice. 
Passion  is  blind,  and  when  I  opened  my  eyes  I  saw 
ten  thousand  difficulties ;  that  is,  I  saw  one,  which 
contained  all  the  rest.  That  evening  I  wrote  to  Mr. 
Frank,  to  his  New  York  address,  to  tell  him  that  I 
had  had  a  fit  of  madness,  and  that  it  had  passed  away; 


112  THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

but  that  I  was  sorry  to  say  it  was  not  any  more  pos- 
sible for  ine  to  marry  him.  I  have  had  no  answer  to 
this  letter ;  but  what  answer  can  he  make  to  that  last 
declaration  ?  He  will  continue  to  adore  me.  How 
strange  are  the  passions  of  men ! 

New  York,  November  20.  I  have  been  silent 
for  three  months,  for  good  reasons.  Eunice  was  ill 
for  many  weeks,  but  there  was  never  a  moment  when 
I  was  really  alarmed  about  her ;  1  knew  she  would 
recover.  In  the  last  days  of  October  she  was  strong 
enough  to  be  brought  up  to  town,  where  she  had  busi- 
ness to  transact,  and  now  she  is  almost  herself  again. 
I  say  almost,  advisedly ;  for  she  will  never  be  herself, 
—  her  old,  sweet,  trustful  self,  as  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned. She  has  simply  not  forgiven  me !  Strange 
things  have  happened  —  things  that  I  did  n't  dare  to 
consider  too  closely,  lest  I  should  not  forgive  myself. 
Eunice  is  in  complete  possession  of  her  property  ! 
Mr.  Caliph  has  made  over  to  her  everything  —  every- 
thing that  had  passed  away ;  everything  of  which, 
three  months  ago,  he  could  give  no  account  whatever. 
He  was  with  her  in  the  country  for  a  long  day  before 
we  came  up  to  town  (during  which  I  took  care  not 
to  meet  her),  .and  after  our  return  he  was  in  and  out 
of  this  house  repeatedly.  I  once  asked  Eunice  what 
he  had  to  say  to  her,  and  she  answered  that  he  was 
"  explaining."  A  day  or  two  later  she  told  me  that 
he  had  given  a  complete  account  of  her  affairs  ;  every- 
thing was  in  order ;  she  had  been  wrong  in  what  she 
told  me  before.  Beyond  this  little  statement,  how- 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.          113 

ever,  she  did  no  further  penance  for  the  impression 
she  had  given  of  Mr.  Caliph's  earlier  conduct.  She 
does  n't  yet  know  what  to  think ;  she  only  feels  that 
if  she  has  recovered  her  property  there  has  been  some 
interference ;  and  she  traces,  or  at  least  imputes,  such 
interference  to  me.  If  I  have  interfered,  I  have  broken 
my  vow ;  and  for  this,  as  I  say,  the  gentle  creature 
can't  forgive  me.  If  the  passions  of  men  are  strange, 
the  passions  of  women  are  stranger  still !  It  was 
sweeter  for  her  to  suffer  at  Mr.  Caliph's  hands  than 
to  receive  her  simple  dues  from  them.  She  looks  at 
me  askance,  and  her  coldness  shows  through  a  con- 
scientious effort  not  to  let  me  see  the  change  in  her 
feeling.  Then  she  is  puzzled  and  mystified ;  she 
can't  tell  what  has  happened,  or  how  and  why  it  has 
happened.  She  has  waked  up  from  her  illness  into 
a  different  world  —  a  world  in  which  Mr.  Caliph's 
accounts  were  correct  after  all;  in  which,  with  the 
washing  away  of  his  stains,  the  color  has  been  quite 
washed  out  of  his  rich  physiognomy.  She  vaguely 
feels  that  a  sacrifice,  a  great  effort  of  some  kind, 
has  been  made  for  her,  whereas  her  plan  of  life 
was  to  make  the  sacrifices  and  efforts  herself.  Yet 
she  asks  me  no  questions ;  the  property  is  her  right, 
after  all,  and  I  think  there  are  certain  things  she  is 
afraid  to  know.  But  I  am  more  afraid  than  she,  for 
it  comes  over  me  that  a  great  sacrifice  has  indeed 
been  made.  I  have  not  seen  Adrian  Frank  since  he 
parted  from  me  under  the  trees  three  months  ago. 
He  has  gone  to  Europe,  and  the  day  before  he  left  I 

8 


114          THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

got  a  note  from  him.  It  contained  only  these  words : 
"  When  you  send  for  me  I  will  come.  I  am  wait- 
ing, as  you  told  me."  It  is  my  belief  that  up  to  the 
moment  I  spoke  of  Eunice's  loss  of  money  and  re- 
quested him  to  ask  no  questions,  he  had  not  definitely 
suspected  his  noble  kinsman,  but  that  my  words  kin- 
dled a  train  that  lay  all  ready.  He  went  away  then 
to  his  shame,  to  the  intolerable  weight  of  it,  and  to 
heaven  knows  what  sickening  explanations  with  his 
step-brother !  That  gentleman  has  a  still  more  brill- 
iant bloom ;  he  looks  to  my  mind  exactly  as  people 
look  who  have  accepted  a  sacrifice ;  and  he  has  n't 
had  another  word  to  say  about  Eunice's  marrying  Mr. 
Adrian  Frank.  Mrs.  Ermine  sticks  to  her  idea  that 
Mr.  Caliph  and  Eunice  will  make  a  match ;  but  my 
belief  is  that  Eunice  is  cured.  Oh,  yes,  she  is  cured  ! 
But  I  have  done  more  than  I  meant  to  do,  and  I  have 
not  done  it  as  I  meant  to  do  it ;  and  I  am  very  weary, 
and  I  shall  write  no  more. 

November  27.  Oh,  yes,  Eunice  is  cured  !  And  that 
is  what  she  has  not  forgiven  me.  Mr.  Caliph  told 
her  yesterday  that  Mr.  Frank  meant  to  spend  the 
winter  in  Rome. 

December  3,  I  have  decided  to  return  to  Europe,  and 
have  written  about  my  apartment  in  Rome.  I  shall 
leave  New  York,  if  possible,  on  the  10th.  Eunice  tells 
me  she  can  easily  believe  I  shall  be  happier  there. 

December  7.  I  must  note  something  I  had  the 
satisfaction  to-day  to  say  to  Mr.  Caliph.  He  has  not 
been  here  for  three  weeks,  but  this  afternoon  he  came 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN.          115 

to  call  He  is  no  longer  the  trustee ;  he  is  only  the 
visitor.  I  was  alone  in  the  library,  into  which  he  was 
ushered;  and  it  was  ten  minutes  before  Eunice  ap- 
peared. We  had  some  talk,  though  my  disgust  for 
him  is  now  unspeakable.  At  first  it  was  of  a  very 
perfunctory  kind;  but  suddenly  he  said,  with  more 
than  his  old  impudence,  "  That  was  a  most  extraor- 
dinary interview  of  ours,  at  Cornerville  ! "  I  was  sur- 
prised at  his  saying  only  this,  for  I  expected  him  to 
take  his  revenge  on  me  by  some  means  or  other  for 
having  put  his  brother  on  the  scent  of  his  misdeeds. 
I  can  only  account  for  his  silence  on  that  subject  by 
the  supposition  that  Mr.  Frank  has  been  able  to 
extract  from  him  some  pledge  that  I  shall  not  be 
molested.  He  was,  however,  such  an  image  of  un- 
righteous success  that  the  sight  of  him  filled  me  with 
gall,  and  I  tried  to  think  of  something  which  would 
make  him  smart. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  have  done,  nor  how  you 
have  done  it,"  I  said ;  "  but  you  took  a  very  round- 
about way  to  arrive  at  certain  ends.  There  was  a 
time  when  you  might  have  married  Eunice." 

It  was  of  course  nothing  new  that  we  were  frank 
with  each  other,  and  he  only  repeated,  smiling,  "  Mar- 
ried Eunice  ? " 

"  She  was  very  much  in  love  with  you  last  spring." 

"  Very  much  in  love  with  me  ? " 

"  Oh,  it 's  over  now.  Can't  you  imagine  that  ? 
She's  cured." 

He  broke  into  a  laugh,  but  I  felt  I  had  startled  him. 


116          THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A   COUSIN. 

"  You  are  the  most  delightful  woman  !  "  he  cried. 

"  Think  how  much  simpler  it  would  have  been  — 
I  mean  originally,  when  things  were  right,  if  they 
ever  were  right.  Don't  you  see  my  point  ?  But  now 
it 's  too  late.  She  has  seen  you  when  you  were  not 
on  show.  I  assure  you  she  is  cured ! " 

At  this  moment  Eunice  came  in,  and  just  after- 
wards I  left  the  room.  I  am  sure  it  was  a  revelation, 
and  that  I  have  given  him  a  mauvais  quart  (Tlieure. 

Rome,  February  23.  When  I  came  back  to  this 
dear  place  Adrian  Frank  was  not  here,  and  I  learned 
that  he  had  gone  to  Sicily.  A  week  ago  I  wrote  to 
him :  "  You  said  you  would  come  if  I  should  send 
for  you.  I  should  be  glad  if  you  would  come  now." 
Last  evening  he  appeared,  and  I  told  him  that  I  could 
no  longer  endure  my  suspense  in  regard  to  a  certain 
subject.  Would  he  kindly  inform  me  what  he  had 
done  in  New  York  after  he  left  me  under  the  trees  at 
Cornerville  ?  Of  what  sacrifice  had  he  been  guilty ; 
to  what  high  generosity  —  terrible  to  me  to  think 
of — had  he  committed  himself?  He  would  tell  me 
very  little ;  but  he  is  almost  a  poor  man.  He  has 
just  enough  income  to  live  in  Italy. 

May  9.  Mrs.  Ermine  has  taken  it  into  her  head 
to  write  to  me.  I  have  heard  from  her  three  times  ; 
and  in  her  last  letter,  received  yesterday,  she  returns 
to  her  old  refrain  that  Eunice  and  Mr.  Caliph  will 
soon  be  united.  I  don't  know  what  may  be  going 
on;  but  can  it  be  possible  that  I  put  it  into  his 
head  ?  Truly,  I  have  a  felicitous  touch ! 


THE  IMPRESSIONS  OF  A  COUSIN.          117 

May  15.  I  told  Adrian  yesterday  that  I  would 
marry  him  if  ever  Eunice  should  marry  Mr.  Caliph. 
It  was  the  first  time  I  had  mentioned  his  step- 
brother's name  to  him  since  the  explanation  I  had 
attempted  to  have  with  him  after  he  came  back  to 
Eome ;  and  he  evidently  did  n't  like  it  at  all 

In  the  Tyrol,  August.  I  sent  Mrs.  Ermine  a 
little  water-color  in  return  for  her  last  letter,  for  I 
can't  write  to  her,  and  that  is  easier.  She  now  writes 
me  again,  in  order  to  get  another  water-color.  She 
speaks  of  course  of  Eunice  and  Mr.  Caliph,  and  for 
the  first  time  there  appears  a  certain  reality  in  what 
she  says.  She  complains  that  Eunice  is  very  slow  in 
coming  to  the  point,  and  relates  that  poor  Mr.  Caliph, 
who  has  taken  her  into  his  confidence,  seems  at  times 
almost  to  despair.  Nothing  would  suit  him  better 
of  course  than  to  appropriate  two  fortunes :  two  are 
so  much  better  than  one.  But  however  much  he 
may  have  explained,  he  can  hardly  have  explained 
everything.  Adrian  Frank  is  in  Scotland ;  in  writing 
to  him  three  days  ago  I  had  occasion  to  repeat  that  I 
will  marry  him  on  the  day  on  which  a  certain  other 
marriage  takes  place.  In  that  way  I  am  safe.  I 
shall  send  another  water-color  to  Mrs.  Ermine. 
Water-colors  or  no,  Eunice  does  n't  write  to  me.  It 
is  clear  that  she  has  n't  forgiven  me !  She  regards 
me  as  perjured ;  and  of  course  I  am.  Perhaps  she 
will  marry  him  after  alL 


LADY    BARBERINA. 


LADY    BARBERINA. 


PART   L 


IT  is  well  known  that  there  are  few  sights  in  the 
world  more  brilliant  than  the  main  avenues  of  Hyde 
Park  of  a  tine  afternoon  in  June.  This  was  quite  the 
opinion  of  two  persons,  who  on  a  beautiful  day  at 
the  beginning  of  that  month,  four  years  ago,  had 
established  themselves  under  the  great  trees  in  a 
couple  of  iron  chairs  (the  big  ones  with  arms,  for 
which,  if  I  mistake  not,  you  pay  twopence),  and  sat 
there  with  the  slow  procession  of  the  Drive  behind 
them,  while  their  faces  were  turned  to  the  more  vivid 
agitation  of  the  Row.  They  were  lost  in  the  multi- 
tude of  observers,  and  they  belonged,  superficially, 
at  least,  to  that  class  of  persons  who,  wherever  they 
may  be,  rank  rather  with  the  spectators  than  with 
the  spectacle.  They  were  quiet,  simple,  elderly,  of 
aspect  somewhat  neutral ;  you  would  have  liked  them 
extremely,  but  you  would  scarcely  have  noticed  them. 
Nevertheless,  in  all  that  shining  host,  it  is  to  them, 


122  LADY  BARBERINA. 

obscure,  that  we  must  give  our  attention.  The  reader 
is  begged  to  have  confidence ;  he  is  not  asked  to  make 
vain  concessions.  There  was  that  in  the  faces  of  our 
friends  which  indicated  that  they  were  growing  old  to- 
gether, and  that  they  were  fond  enough  of  each  other's 
company  not  to  object  (if  it  was  a  condition),  even 
to  that.  The  reader  will  have  guessed  that  they  were 
husband  and  wife ;  and  perhaps  while  he  is  about  it, 
he  will  have  guessed  that  they  were  of  that  nation- 
ality for  which  Hyde  Park  at  the  height  of  the  season 
is  most  completely  illustrative.  They  were  familiar 
strangers,  as  it  were ;  and  people  at  once  so  initiated 
and  so  detached  could  only  be  Americans.  This  re- 
flection, indeed,  you  would  have  made  only  after  some 
delay ;  for  it  must  be  admitted  that  they  carried  few 
patriotic  signs  on  the  surface.  They  had  the  Ameri- 
can turn  of  mind,  but  that  was  very  subtle ;  and  to 
your  eye — if  your  eye  had  cared  about  it  —  they 
might  have  been  of  English,  or  even  of  Continental, 
parentage.  It  was  as  if  it  suited  them  to  be  color- 
less ;  their  color  was  all  in  their  talk.  They  were  not 
in  the  least  verdant ;  they  were  gray,  rather,  of  mon- 
otonous hue.  If  they  were  interested  in  the  riders, 
the  horses,  the  walkers,  the  great  exhibition  of  Eng- 
lish wealth  and  health,  beauty,  luxury,  and  leisure,  it 
was  because  all  this  referred  itself  to  other  impres- 
sions, because  they  had  the  key  to  almost  everything 
that  needed  an  answer,  —  because,  in  a  word,  they 
were  able  to  compare.  They  had  not  arrived,  they  had 
only  returned ;  and  recognition  much  more  than  sur- 


LADY  BARBERINA.  123 

prise  was  expressed  in  their  quiet  gaze.  It  may  as 
well  be  said  outright  that  Dexter  Freer  and  his  wife 
belonged  to  that  class  of  Americans  who  are  con- 
stantly "  passing  through  "  London.  Possessors  of  a 
fortune  of  which,  from  any  standpoint,  the  limits 
were  plainly  visible,  they  were  unable  to  command 
that  highest  of  luxuries,  —  a  habitation  in  their  own 
country.  They  found  it  much  more  possible  to 
economize  at  Dresden  or  Florence  than  at  Buffalo  or 
Minneapolis.  The  economy  was  as  great,  and  the 
inspiration  was  greater.  From  Dresden,  from  Flor- 
ence, moreover,  they  constantly  made  excursions 
which  would  not  have  been  possible  in  those  other 
cities  ;  and  it  is  even  to  be  feared  that  they  had  some 
rather  expressive  methods  of  saving.  They  came  to 
London  to  buy  their  portmanteaus,  their  toothbrushes, 
their  writing-paper;  they  occasionally  even  crossed 
the  Atlantic  to  assure  themselves  that  prices  over 
there  were  still  the  same.  They  were  eminently  a 
social  pair;  their  interests  were  mainly  personal. 
Their  point  of  view,  always,  was  so  distinctly  human, 
that  they  passed  for  being  fond  of  gossip ;  and  they 
certainly  knew  a  good  deal  about  the  affairs  of  other 
people.  They  had  friends  in  every  country,  in  every 
town ;  and  it  was  not  their  fault  if  people  told  them 
their  secrets.  Dexter  Freer  was  a  tall,  lean  man,  with 
an  interested  eye,  and  a  nose  that  rather  drooped  than 
aspired,  yet  was  salient  withal.  He  brushed  his  hair, 
which  was  streaked  with  white,  forward  over  his  ears, 
in  those  locks  which  are  represented  in  the  portraits 


124  LADY  BARBERINA. 

of  clean-shaven  gentlemen  who  flourished  fifty  years 
ago,  and  wore  an  old-fashioned  neckcloth  and  gaiters. 
His  wife,  a  small,  plump  person,  of  superficial  fresh- 
ness, with  a  white  face,  and  hair  that  was  still  per- 
fectly black,  smiled  perpetually,  but  had  never 
laughed  since  the  death  of  a  son  whom  she  had  lost 
ten  years  after  her  marriage.  Her  husband,  on  the 
other  hand,  who  was  usually  quite  grave,  indulged  on 
great  occasions  in  resounding  mirth.  People  con- 
fided in  her  less  than  in  him;  but  that  mattered 
little,  as  she  confided  sufficiently  in  herself.  Her 
dress,  which  was  always  black  or  dark  gray,  was  so 
harmoniously  simple,  that  you  could  see  she  was  fond 
of  it ;  it  was  never  smart  by  accident.  She  was  full  of 
intentions  of  the  most  judicious  sort ;  and  though  she 
was  perpetually  moving  about  the  world,  she  had  the 
air  of  being  perfectly  stationary.  She  was  celebrated 
for  the  promptitude  with  which  she  made  her  sitting- 
room  at  an  inn,  where  she  might  be  spending  a  night 
or  two,  look  like  an  apartment  long  inhabited.  With 
books,  flowers,  photographs,  draperies,  rapidly  dis- 
tributed, —  she  had  even  a  way,  for  the  most  part,  of 
having  a  piano, — the  place  seemed  almost  hereditary. 
The  pair  were  just  back  from  America,  where  they 
had  spent  three  months,  and  now  were  able  to  face 
the  world  with  something  of  the  elation  which  people 
feel  who  have  been  justified  in  a  prevision.  They 
had  found  their  native  land  quite  ruinous. 

"  There  he   is  again ! "   said  Mr.  Freer,  following 
with  his  eyes  a  young  man  who  passed  along  the 


LADY  BARBERINA.  125 

Kow,  riding  slowly.  "That's  a  beautiful  thorough- 
bred!" 

Mrs.  Freer  asked  idle  questions  only  when  she 
wished  for  time  to  think.  At  present  she  had  simply 
to  look  and  see  who  it  was  her  husband  meant  "  The 
horse  is  too  big,"  she  remarked,  in  a  moment. 

"  You  mean  that  the  rider  is  too  small,"  her  hus- 
band rejoined ;  "  he  is  mounted  on  his  millions." 

"Is  it  really  millions  ?" 

"  Seven  or  eight,  they  tell  me." 

"How  disgusting!"  It  was  in  this  manner  that 
Mrs.  Freer  usually  spoke  of  the  large  fortunes  of  the 
day.  "  I  wish  he  would  see  us,"  she  added. 

"  He  does  see  us,  but  he  does  n't  like  to  look  at  us. 
He  is  too  conscious ;  he  is  n't  easy." 

"  Too  conscious  of  his  big  horse  ? " 

"  Yes,  and  of  his  big  fortune ;  he  is  rather  ashamed 
of  it." 

"  This  is  an  odd  place  to  come,  then,"  said  Mrs.  Freer. 

"  I  am  not  sure  of  that.  He  will  find  people  here 
richer  than  himself,  and  other  big  horses  in  plenty, 
and  that  will  cheer  him  up.  Perhaps,  too,  he  is  look- 
ing for  that  girl." 

"  The  one  we  heard  about  ?  He  can't  be  such  a  fool." 

"He  isn't  a  fool,"  said  Dexter  Freer.  "If  he  is 
thinking  of  her,  he  has  some  good  reason." 

"  I  wonder  what  Mary  Lemon  would  say." 

"  She  would  say  it  was  right,  if  he  should  do  it. 
She  thinks  he  can  do  no  wrong.  He  is  exceedingly 
fond  of  her." 


126  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  I  sha'n't  be  sure  of  that  if  he  takes  home  a  wife 
that  will  despise  her." 

"  Why  should  the  girl  despise  her  ?  She  is  a  de- 
lightful woman." 

"  The  girl  will  never  know  it,  —  and  if  she  should,  it 
would  make  no  difference ;  she  will  despise  everything." 

"  I  don't  believe  it,  my  dear ;  she  will  like  some 
things  very  much.  Every  one  will  be  very  nice  to 
her." 

"  She  will  despise  them  all  the  more.  But  we  are 
speaking  as  if  it  were  all  arranged ;  I  don't  believe 
in  it  at  all,"  said  Mrs.  Freer. 

"  Well,  something  of  the  sort  —  in  this  case  or  in 
some  other  —  is  sure  to  happen  sooner  or  later,"  her 
husband  replied,  turning  round  a  little  toward  the 
part  of  the  delta  which  is  formed,  near  the  entrance 
to  the  Park,  by  the  divergence  of  the  two  great  vistas 
of  the  Drive  and  the  Eow. 

Our  friends  had  turned  their  backs,  as  I  have  said, 
to  the  solemn  revolution  of  wheels  and  the  densely- 
packed  mass  of  spectators  who  had  chosen  that  part 
of  the  show.  These  spectators  were  now  agitated  by 
a  unanimous  impulse:  the  pushing  back  of  chairs, 
the  shuffle  of  feet,  the  rustle  of  garments,  and  the 
deepening  murmur  of  voices  sufficiently  expressed  it. 
Koyalty  was  approaching  —  royalty  was  passing  — 
royalty  had  passed.  Freer  turned  his  head  and  his 
ear  a  little ;  but  he  failed  to  alter  his  position  further, 
and  his  wife  took  no  notice  of  the  flurry.  They  had 
seen  royalty  pass,  all  over  Europe,  and  they  knew  that 


LADY  BARBERINA.  127 

it  passed  very  quickly.  Sometimes  it  came  back; 
sometimes  it  did  n't ;  for  more  than  once  they  had 
seen  it  pass  for  the  last  time.  They  were  veteran 
tourists,  and  they  knew  perfectly  when  to  get  up  and 
when  to  remain  seated.  Mr.  Freer  went  on  with  his 
proposition :  "  Some  young  fellow  is  certain  to  do  it, 
and  one  of  these  girls  is  certain  to  take  the  risk. 
They  must  take  risks,  over  here,  more  and  more." 

"  The  girls,  I  have  no  doubt,  will  be  glad  enough ; 
they  have  had  very  little  chance  as  yet.  But  I  don't 
want  Jackson  to  begin." 

"  Do  you  know  I  rather  think  I  do/'  said  Dexter 
Freer ;  "  it  will  be  very  amusing." 

"  For  us,  perhaps,  but  not  for  him  ;  he  will  repent 
of  it,  and  be  wretched.  He  is  too  good  for  that." 

"  Wretched,  never !  He  has  no  capacity  for  wretch- 
edness ;  and  that 's  why  he  can  afford  to  risk  it." 

"He  will  have  to  make  great  concessions,"  Mrs. 
Freer  remarked. 

"  He  won't  make  one." 

"  I  should  like  to  see." 

"  You  admit,  then,  that  it  will  be  amusing,  which  is 
all  I  contend  for.  But,  as  you  say,  we  are  talking  as 
if  it  were  settled,  whereas  there  is  probably  nothing 
in  it  after  all.  The  best  stories  always  turn  out  false. 
I  shall  be  sorry  in  this  case." 

They  relapsed  into  silence,  while  people  passed  and 
repassed  them  —  continuous,  successive,  mechanical, 
with  strange  sequences  of  faces.  They  looked  at  the 
people,  but  no  one  looked  at  them,  though  every  one 


128  LADY  BARBERINA. 

was  there  so  admittedly  to  see  what  was  to  be  seen. 
It  was  all  striking,  all  pictorial,  and  it  made  a  great 
composition.  The  wide,  long  area  of  the  Eow,  its 
red-brown  surface  dotted  with  bounding  figures, 
stretched  away  into  the  distance  and  became  suffused 
and  misty  in  the  bright,  thick  air.  The  deep,  dark 
English  verdure  that  bordered  and  overhung  it,  looked 
rich  and  old,  revived  and  refreshed  though  it  was  by 
the  breath  of  June.  The  mild  blue  of  the  sky  was 
spotted  with  great  silvery  clouds,  and  the  light 
drizzled  down  in  heavenly  shafts  over  the  quieter 
spaces  of  the  Park,  as  one  saw  them  beyond  the  Eow. 
All  this,  however,  was  only  a  background,  for  the 
scene  was  before  everything  personal:  superbly  so, 
and  full  of  the  gloss  and  lustre,  the  contrasted  tones, 
of  a  thousand  polished  surfaces.  Certain  things  were 
salient,  pervasive,  —  the  shining  flanks  of  the  perfect 
horses,  the  twinkle  of  bits  and  spurs,  the  smoothness 
of  fine  cloth  adjusted  to  shoulders  and  limbs,  the 
sheen  of  hats  and  boots,  the  freshness  of  complexions, 
the  expression  of  smiling,  talking  faces,  the  flash  and 
flutter  of  rapid  gallops.  Faces  were  everywhere,  and 
they  were  the  great  effect,  —  above  all,  the  fair  faces 
of  women  on  tall  horses,  flushed  a  little  under  their 
stiff  black  hats,  with  figures  stiffened,  in  spite  of 
much  definition  of  curve,  by  their  tight-fitting  habits. 
Their  hard  little  helmets,  their  neat,  compact  heads, 
their  straight  necks,  their  firm,  tailor-made  armor, 
their  blooming,  competent  physique,  made  them  look 
doubly  like  amazons  about  to  ride  a  charge.  The 


LADY  BARBERINA.  129 

men,  with  their  eyes  before  them,  with  hats  of  undu- 
lating brim,  good  profiles,  high  collars,  white  flowers 
on  their  chests,  long  legs  and  long  feet,  had  an  air 
more  elaboratively  decorative,  as  they  jolted  beside 
the  ladies,  always  out  of  step.  These  were  youthful 
types ;  but  it  was  not  all  youth,  for  many  a  saddle  was 
surmounted  by  a  richer  rotundity,  and  ruddy  faces, 
with  short  white  whiskers  or  with  matronly  chins, 
looked  down  comfortably  from  an  equilibrium  which 
was  moral  as  well  as  physical.  The  walkers  differed 
from  the  riders  only  in  being  on  foot,  and  in  looking 
at  the  riders  more  than  these  looked  at  them;  for 
they  would  have  done  as  well  in  the  saddle  and  rid- 
den as  the  others  ride.  The  women  had  tight  little 
bonnets  and  still  tighter  little  knots  of  hair;  their 
round  chins  rested  on  a  close  swathing  of  lace,  or,  in 
some -cases,  of  silver  chains  and  circlets.  They  had 
flat  backs  and  small  waists,  they  walked  slowly,  with 
their  elbows  out,  carrying  vast  parasols,  and  turning 
their  heads  very  little  to  the  right  or  the  left.  They 
were  amazons  unmounted,  quite  ready  to  spring  into 
the  saddle.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  beauty  and  a 
suffused  look  of  successful  development,  which  came 
from  clear,  quiet  eyes  and  from  well-cut  lips,  on  which 
syllables  were  liquid  and  sentences  brief.  Some  of 
the  young  men,  as  well  as  the  women,  had  the  happiest 
proportions  and  oval  faces,  in  which  line  and  color 
were  pure  and  fresh,  and  the  idea  of  the  moment  was 
not  very  intense. 

"They  are  very  good-looking,"  said  Mr.  Freer,  at 
9 


130  LADY  BARBERINA. 

the    end    of    ten    minutes;    "they  are    the    finest 
whites." 

"  So  long  as  they  remain  white  they  do  very  well ; 
but  when  they  venture  upon  color ! "  his  wife  replied. 
She  sat  with  her  eyes  on  a  level  with  the  skirts  of 
the  ladies  who  passed  her ;  and  she  had  been  follow- 
ing the  progress  of  a  green  velvet  robe,  enriched  with 
ornaments  of  steel  and  much  gathered  up  in  the 
hands  of  its  wearer,  who,  herself  apparently  in  her 
teens,  was  accompanied  by  a  young  lady  draped  in 
scanty  pink  muslin,  embroidered,  aesthetically,  with 
flowers  that  simulated  the  iris. 

"  All  the  same,  in  a  crowd,  they  are  wonderfully 
well  turned  out,"  Dexter  Freer  went  on ;  "  take  the 
men,  and  women,  and  horses  together.  Look  at  that 
big  fellow  on  the  light  chestnut :  what  could  be  more 
perfect?  By  the  way,  it's  Lord  Canterville,"  he 
added  in  a  moment,  as  if  the  fact  were  of  some 
importance. 

Mrs.  Freer  recognized  its  importance  to  the  degree 
of  raising  her  glass  to  look  at  Lord  Canterville. 
"  How  do  you  know  it 's  he  ? "  she  asked,  with  her 
glass  still  up. 

"  I  heard  him  say  something  the  night  I  went  to 
the  House  of  Lords.  It  was  very  few  words,  but  I 
remember  him.  A  man  who  was  near  me  told  me 
who  he  was." 

"  He  is  not  so  handsome  as  you,"  said  Mrs.  Freer, 
dropping  her  glass. 

"  Ah,  you  're  too  difficult ! "  her  husband  murmured. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  131 

"  What  a  pity  the  girl  is  n  't  with  him,"  he  went  on ; 
"  we  might  see  something." 

It  appeared  in  a  moment  that  the  girl  was  with  him. 
The  nobleman  designated  had  ridden  slowly  forward 
from  the  start,  hut  just  opposite  our  friends  he  pulled 
up  to  look  behind  him,  as  if  he  had  been  waiting  for 
some  one.  At  the  same  moment  a  gentleman  in  the 
Walk  engaged  his  attention,  so  that  he  advanced  to 
the  barrier  which  protects  the  pedestrians,  and  halted 
there,  bending  a  little  from  his  saddle  and  talking 
with  his  friend,  who  leaned  against  the  rail.  Lord 
Canterville  was  indeed  perfect,  as  his  American  ad- 
mirer had  said.  Upwards  of  sixty,  and  of  great  stat- 
ure and  great  presence,  he  was  really  a  splendid 
apparition.  In  exquisite  preservation,  he  had  the 
freshness  of  middle  life,  and  would  have  been  young 
to  the  eye  if  the  lapse  of  years  were  not  needed  to 
account  for  his  considerable  girth.  He  was  clad  from 
head  to  foot  in  garments  of  a  radiant  gray,  and  his 
fine  florid  countenance  was  surmounted  with  a  white 
hat,  of  which  the  majestic  curves  were  a  triumph  of 
good  form.  Over  his  mighty  chest  was  spread  a  beard 
of  the  richest  growth,  and  of  a  color,  in  spite  of  a  few 
streaks,  vaguely  grizzled,  to  which  the  coat  of  his  ad- 
mirable horse  appeared  to  be  a  perfect  match.  It  left 
no  opportunity,  in  his  uppermost  button-hole,  for  the 
customary  gardenia;  but  this  was  of  comparatively 
little  consequence,  as  the  vegetation  of  the  beard  it- 
self was  tropical.  Astride  his  great  steed,  with  his 
big  fist,  gloved  in  pearl-gray,  on  his  swelling  thigh,  his 


132  LADY  BARBERINA. 

face  lighted  up  with  good-humored  indifference,  and 
all  his  magnificent  surface  reflecting  the  mild  sun- 
shine, he  was  a  very  imposing  man  indeed,  and  visibly, 
incontestably,  a  personage.  People  almost  lingered 
to  look  at  him  as  they  passed.  His  halt  was  brief, 
however,  for  he  was  almost  immediately  joined  by 
two  handsome  girls,  who  were  as  well  turned-out,  in 
Dexter  Freer's  phrase,  as  himself.  They  had  been 
detained  a  moment  at  the  entrance  to  the  Eow,  and 
now  advanced  side  by  side,  their  groom  close  behind 
them.  One  was  taller  and  older  than  the  other,  and 
it  was  apparent  at  a  glance  that  they  were  sisters. 
Between  them,  with  their  charming  shoulders,  con- 
tracted waists,  and  skirts  that  hung  without  a  wrinkle, 
like  a  plate  of  zinc,  they  represented  in  a  singularly 
complete  form  the  pretty  English  girl  in  the  position 
in  which  she  is  prettiest. 

"  Of  course  they  are  his  daughters,"  said  Dexter 

Freer,  as  they  rode  away  with  Lord  Canterville ;  "  and 

'in  that  case  one  of  them  must  be  Jackson  Lemon's 

sweetheart.     Probably  the  bigger;  they  said  it  was 

the  eldest.     She  is  evidently  a  fine  creature." 

"  She  would  hate  it  over  there,"  Mrs.  Freer  re- 
marked, for  all  answer  to  this  cluster  of  inductions. 

"  You  know  I  don't  admit  that.  But  granting  she 
should,  it  would  do  her  good  to  have  to  accommodate 
herself." 

"She  wouldn't  accommodate  herself." 

"  She  looks  so  confoundedly  fortunate,  perched  up 
on  that  saddle/'  Dexter  Freer  pursued,  without  heed- 
ing his  wife's  rejoinder. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  133 

"  Are  n't  they  supposed  to  be  very  poor  ? " 

"  Yes,  they  look  it !  "  And  his  eyes  followed  the 
distinguished  trio,  as,  with  the  groom,  as  distinguished 
in  his  way  as  any  of  them,  they  started  on  a  canter. 

The  air  was  full  of  sound,  but  it  was  low  and  dif- 
fused ;  and  when,  near  our  friends,  it  became  articu- 
late, the  words  were  simple  and  few. 

"  It 's  as  good  as  the  circus,  is  n't  it,  Mrs.  Freer  ? " 
These  words  correspond  to  that  description,  but  they 
pierced  the  air  more  effectually  than  any  our  friends 
had  lately  heard.  They  were  uttered  by  a  young 
man  who  had  stopped  short  in  the  path,  absorbed  by 
the  sight  of  his  compatriots.  He  was  short  and 
stout,  he  had  a  round,  kind  face,  and  short,  stiff-look- 
ing hair,  which  was  reproduced  in  a  small  bristling 
beard.  He  wore  a  double-breasted  walking-coat, 
which  was  not,  however,  buttoned,  and  on  the  sum- 
mit of  his  round  head  was  perched  a  hat  of  exceed- 
ing smallness,  and  of  the  so-called  "  pot "  category. 
It  evidently  fitted  him,  but  a  hatter  himself  would 
not  have  known  why.  His  hands  were  encased  in 
new  gloves,  of  a  dark-brown  color,  and  they  hung 
with  an  air  of  unaccustomed  inaction  at  his  sides. 
He  sported  neither  umbrella  nor  stick.  He  ex- 
tended one  of  his  hands,  almost  with  eagerness,  to 
Mrs.  Freer,  blushing  a  little  as  he  became  aware  that 
he  had  been  eager. 

"  Oh,  Dr.  Feeder  ! "  she  said,  smiling  at  him.  Then 
she  repeated  to  her  husband,  "  Dr.  Feeder,  my  dear ! " 
and  her  husband  said,  "  Oh,  Doctor,  how  d'  ye  do  ? " 


134  LADY  BARBERINA. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  composition  of  his  appear- 
ance; but  the  items  were  not  perceived  by  these 
two.  They  saw  only  one  thing,  his  delightful 
face,  which  was  both  simple  and  clever,  and  unre- 
servedly good.  They  had  lately  made  the  voyage 
from  New  York  in  his  company,  and  it  was  plain 
that  he  would  be  very  genial  at  sea.  After  he  had 
stood  in  front  of  them  a  moment,  a  chair  beside  Mrs. 
Freer  became  vacant,  on  which  he  took  possession  of 
it,  and  sat  there  telling  her  what  he  thought  of  the 
Park,  and  how  he  liked  London.  As  she  knew  every 
one,  she  had  known  many  of  his  people  at  home ; 
and  while  she  listened  to  him  she  remembered  how 
large  their  contribution  had  been  to  the  virtue  and 
culture  of  Cincinnati.  Mrs.  Freer's  social  horizon 
included  even  that  city ;  she  had  been  on  terms  al- 
most familiar  with  several  families  from  Ohio,  and 
was  acquainted  with  the  position  of  the  Feeders 
there.  This  family,  very  numerous,  was  interwoven 
into  an  enormous  cousinship.  She  herself  was  quite 
out  of  such  a  system,  but  she  could  have  told  you 
whom  Dr.  Feeder's  great-grandfather  had  married. 
Every  one,  indeed,  had  heard  of  the  good  deeds  of 
the  descendants  of  this  worthy,  who  were  generally 
physicians,  excellent  ones,  and  whose  name  ex- 
pressed not  inaptly  their  numerous  acts  of  charity. 
Sidney  Feeder,  who  had  several  cousins  of  this  name 
established  in  the  same  line  at  Cincinnati,  had  trans- 
ferred himself  and  his  ambition  to  New  York,  where 
his  practice,  at  the  end  of  three  years,  had  begun  to 


LADY  BARBERINA.  135 

grow.  He  had  studied  his  profession  at  Vienna,  and 
was  impregnated  with  German  science ;  indeed,  if  he 
had  only  worn  spectacles,  he  might  perfectly,  as  he 
sat  there  watching  the  riders  in  Eotten  Row  as  if 
their  proceedings  were  a  successful  demonstration, 
have  passed  for  a  young  German  of  distinction.  He 
had  come  over  to  London  to  attend  a  medical  con- 
gress which  met  this  year  in  the  British  capital ;  for 
his  interest  in  the  healing  art  was  by  no  means 
limited  to  the  cure  of  his  patients,  it  embraced 
every  form  of  experiment ;  and  the  expression  of  his 
honest  eyes  would  almost  have  reconciled  you  to 
vivisection.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  come  to 
the  Park ;  for  social  experiments  he  had  little  leisure. 
Being  aware,  however,  that  it  was  a  very  typical,  and 
as  it  were  symptomatic,  sight,  he  had  conscientiously 
reserved  an  afternoon,  and  had  dressed  himself  care- 
fully for  the  occasion.  "  It 's  quite  a  brilliant  show," 
he  said  to  Mrs.  Freer;  "it  makes  me  wish  I  had  a 
mount."  Little  as  he  resembled  Lord  Canterville,  he 
rode  very  well. 

"Wait  till  Jackson  Lemon  passes  again,  and  you 
can  stop  him  and  make  him  let  you  take  a  turn." 
This  was  the  jocular  suggestion  of  Dexter  Freer. 

"  Why,  is  he  here  ?  I  have  been  looking  out  for 
him  ;  I  should  like  to  see  him." 

"  Does  n't  he  go  to  your  medical  congress  ? "  asked 
Mrs.  Freer. 

"  Well  yes,  he  attends  ;  but  he  is  n't  very  regular. 
I  guess  he  goes  out  a  good  deal." 


136  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  I  guess  he  does,"  said  Mr.  Freer ;  "  and  if  lie  is  n't 
very  regular,  I  guess  he  has  a  good  reason.  A  beauti- 
ful reason,  a  charming  reason/'  he  went  on,  bending 
forward  to  look  down  toward  the  beginning  of  the 
Row.  "  Dear  me,  what  a  lovely  reason !  " 

Dr.  Feeder  followed  the  direction  of  his  eyes,  and 
after  a  moment  understood  his  allusion.  Little  Jack- 
son Lemon,  on  his  big  horse,  passed  along  the  avenue 
again,  riding  beside  one  of  the  young  girls  who 
had  come  that  way  shortly  before  in  the  company 
of  Lord  Canterville.  His  lordship  followed,  in  con- 
versation with  the  other,  his  younger  daughter.  As 
they  advanced,  Jackson  Lemon  turned  his  eyes  to- 
ward the  multitude  under  the  trees,  and  it  so  hap- 
pened that  they  rested  upon  the  Dexter  Freers.  He 
smiled,  and  raised  his  hat  with  all  possible  friend- 
liness; and  his  three  companions  turned  to  see  to 
whom  he  was  bowing  with  so  much  cordiality.  As 
he  settled  his  hat  on  his  head,  he  espied  the  young 
man  from  Cincinnati,  whom  he  had  at  first  over- 
looked ;  whereupon  he  smiled  still  more  brightly,  and 
waved  Sidney  Feeder  an  airy  salutation  with  his  hand, 
reining  in  a  little  at  the  same  time  just  for  an  instant, 
as  if  he  half  expected  the  Doctor  to  come  and  speak 
to  him.  Seeing  him  with  strangers,  however,  Sidney 
Feeder  hung  back,  staring  a  little  as  he  rode  away. 

It  is  open  to  us  to  know  that  at  this  moment  the 
young  lady  by  whose  side  he  was  riding  said  to 
him  familiarly  enough  :  "  Who  are  those  people  you 
bowed  to  ? " 


LADY  BARBERINA.  137 

"  Some  old  friends  of  mine,  —  Americans,"  Jackson 
Lemon  answered. 

"  Of  course  they  are  Americans ;  there  is  nothing 
but  Americans  nowadays." 

"  Oh,  yes,  our  turn  's  coming  round ! "  laughed  the 
young  man. 

"  But  that  does  n't  say  who  they  are,"  his  companion 
continued.  "  It 's  so  difficult  to  say  who  Americans 
are,"  she  added,  before  he  had  time  to  answer  her. 

"  Dexter  Freer  and  his  wife,  —  there  is  nothing 
difficult  about  that ;  every  one  knows  them." 

"  I  never  heard  of  them,"  said  the  English  girl. 

"  Ah,  that  's  your  fault.  I  assure  you  everybody 
knows  them." 

"  And  does  everybody  know  the  little  man  with  the 
fat  face  whom  you  kissed  your  hand  to  ? " 

"  I  did  n't  kiss  my  hand ;  but  I  would  if  I  had 
thought  of  it.  He  is  a  great  chum  of  mine,  —  a  fel- 
low student  at  Vienna." 

"  And  what 's  his  name  ? " 

"  Dr.  Feeder." 

Jackson  Lemon's  companion  was  silent  a  moment. 
"  Are  all  your  friends  doctors  ? "  she  presently  in- 
quired. 

"  No ;  some  of  them  are  in  other  businesses." 

"  Are  they  all  in  some  business  ? " 

"Most  of  them;  save  two  or  three,  like  Dexter 
Freer." 

"  Dexter  Freer  ?  I  thought  you  said  Dr.  Freer." 

The  young  man  gave  a  laugh.     "You  heard  me 


138  LADY  BARBERINA. 

wrong.  You  have  got  doctors  on  the  brain,  Lady 
Barb." 

"I  am  rather  glad,"  said  Lady  Barb,  giving  the 
rein  to  her  horse,  who  bounded  away. 

"  Well  yes,  she 's  very  handsome,  the  reason,"  Dr. 
Feeder  remarked,  as  he  sat  under  the  trees. 

"  Is  he  going  to  marry  her  ? "  Mrs.  Freer  inquired. 

"  Marry  her  ?    I  hope  not." 

"  Why  do  you  hope  not  ? " 

"  Because  I  know  nothing  about  her.  I  want  to 
know  something  about  the  woman  that  man  marries." 

"  I  suppose  you  would  like  him  to  marry  in  Cin- 
cinnati," Mrs.  Freer  rejoined,  lightly. 

"  Well,  I  am  not  particular  where  it  is  ;  but  I  want 
to  know  her  first."  Dr.  Feeder  was  very  sturdy. 

"  We  were  in  hopes  you  would  know  all  about  it," 
said  Mr.  Freer. 

"  No ;  I  have  n't  kept  up  with  him  there." 

"  We  have  heard  from  a  dozen  people  that  he  has 
been  always  with  her  for  the  last  month ;  and  that 
kind  of  thing,  in  England,  is  supposed  to  mean  some- 
thing. Hasn't  he  spoken  of  her  when  you  have 
seen  him  ? " 

"  No,  he  has  only  talked  about  the  new  treatment 
of  spinal  meningitis.  He  is  very  much  interested 
in  spinal  meningitis." 

"  I  wonder  if  he  talks  about  it  to  Lady  Barb,"  said 
Mrs.  Freer. 

"  Who  is  she,  any  way  ? "  the  young  man  inquired. 

"  Lady  Barberina  Clement." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  139 

"  And  who  is  Lady  Barberina  Clement  ?  " 

"  The  daughter  of  Lord  Canterville." 

"  And  who  is  Lord  Canterville  ?  " 

"  Dexter  must  tell  you  that,"  said  Mrs.  Freer. 

And  Dexter  accordingly  told  him  that  the  Marquis 
of  Canterville  had  been  in  his  day  a  great  sporting 
nobleman  and  an  ornament  to  English  society,  and 
had  held  more  than  once  a  high  post  in  her  Majesty's 
household.  Dexter  Freer  knew  all  these  things, — how 
his  lordship  had  married  a  daughter  of  Lord  Treherne, 
a  very  serious,  intelligent,  and  beautiful  woman,  who 
had  redeemed  him  from  the  extravagance  of  his 
youth  and  presented  him  in  rapid  succession  with  a 
dozen  little  tenants  for  the  nurseries  at  Pasterns,  — 
this  being,  as  Mr.  Freer  also  knew,  the  name  of  the 
principal  seat  of  the  Cantervilles.  The  Marquis  was 
a  Tory,  but  very  liberal  for  a  Tory,  and  very  popular 
in  society  at  large ;  good-natured,  good-looking,  know- 
ing how  to  be  genial,  and  yet  to  remain  a  grand  sei- 
gneur, clever  enough  to  make  an  occasional  speech, 
and  much  associated  with  the  fine  old  English  pur- 
suits, as  well  as  with  many  of  the  new  improvements, 
—  the  purification  of  the  Turf,  the  opening  of  the 
museums  on  Sunday,  the  propagation  of  coffee-taverns, 
the  latest  ideas  on  sanitary  reform.  He  disapproved 
of  the  extension  of  the  suffrage,  but  he  positively  had 
drainage  on  the  brain.  It  had  been  said  of  him  at 
least  once  (and  I  think  in  print)  that  he  was  just  the 
man  to  convey  to  the  popular  mind  the  impression 
that  the  British  aristocracy  is  still  a  living  force. 


140  LADY  BARBERINA. 

He  was  not  very  rich,  unfortunately  (for  a  man  who 
had  to  exemplify  such  truths),  and  of  his  twelve  chil- 
dren, no  less  than  seven  were  daughters.  Lady  Bar- 
berina,  Jackson  Lemon's  friend,  was  the  second ;  the 
eldest  had  married  Lord  Beauchemin.  Mr.  Freer  had 
caught  quite  the  right  pronunciation  of  this  name : 
he  called  it  Bitumen.  Lady  Lucretia  had  done  very 
well,  for  her  husband  was  rich,  and  she  had  brought 
him  nothing  to  speak  of;  but  it  was  hardly  to  be  ex- 
pected that  the  others  would  do  as  well.  Happily 
the  younger  girls  were  still  in  the  schoolroom;  and 
before  they  had  come  up,  Lady  Canterville,  who  was 
a  woman  of  resources,  would  have  worked  off  the  two 
that  were  out.  It  was  Lady  Agatha's  first  season; 
she  was  not  so  pretty  as  her  sister,  but  she  was 
thought  to  be  cleverer.  Half-a-dozen  people  had 
spoken  to  him  of  Jackson  Lemon's  being  a  great 
deal  at  the  Cantervilles.  He  was  supposed  to  be 
enormously  rich. 

"Well,  so  he  is,"  said  Sidney  Feeder,  who  had 
listened  to  Mr.  Freer's  little  recital  with  attention, 
with  eagerness  even,  but  with  an  air  of  imperfect 
apprehension. 

"  Yes,  but  not  so  rich  as  they  probably  think." 

"  Do  they  want  his  money  ?  Is  that  what  they  're 
after?" 

"  You  go  straight  to  the  point,"  Mrs.  Freer  mur- 
mured. 

"  I  have  n't  the  least  idea,"  said  her  husband.  "  He 
is  a  very  nice  fellow  in  himself." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  141 

"  Yes,  but  he 's  a  doctor,"  Mrs.  Freer  remarked. 

"  What  have  they  got  against  that  ? "  asked  Sid- 
ney Feeder. 

"  Why,  over  here,  you  know,  they  only  call  them 
in  to  prescribe,"  said  Dexter  Freer  ;  "  the  profession 
is  n't  —  a  —  what  you  'd  call  aristocratic." 

"  Well,  I  don't  know  it,  and  I  don't  know  that  I 
want  to  know  it.  How  do  you  mean,  aristocratic  ? 
What  profession  is  ?  It  would  be  rather  a  curious 
one.  Many  of  the  gentlemen  at  the  congress  there 
are  quite  charming." 

"  I  like  doctors  very  much,"  said  Mrs.  Freer ;  "  my 
father  was  a  doctor.  But  they  don't  many  the 
daughters  of  marquises." 

"  I  don't  believe  Jackson  wants  to  marry  that  one." 

"  Very  possibly  not  —  people  are  such  asses,"  said 
Dexter  Freer.  "  But  he  will  have  to  decide.  I  wish 
you  would  find  out,  by  the  way  ;  you  can  if  you  will" 

"  I  will  ask  him  —  up  at  the  congress ;  I  can  do 
that.  I  suppose  he  has  got  to  marry  some  one." 
Sidney  Feeder  added,  in  a  moment,  "  And  she  may 
be  a  nice  girl." 

"  She  is  said  to  be  charming." 

"  Very  well,  then ;  it  won't  hurt  him.  I  must  say, 
however,  I  am  not  sure  I  like  all  that  about  her 
family." 

"  What  I  told  you  ?  It 's  all  to  their  honor  and 
glory." 

"  Are  they  quite  on  the  square  ?  It 's  like  those 
people  in  Thackeray." 


142  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  Oh,  if  Thackeray  could  have  done  this  ! "  Mrs, 
Freer  exclaimed,  with  a  good  deal  of  expression. 

"  You  mean  all  this  scene  ? "  asked  the  young  man. 

"  No  ;  the  inarria.ge  of  a  British  noblewoman  and 
an  American  doctor.  It  would  have  been  a  subject 
for  Thackeray." 

"  You  see  you  do  want  it,  my  dear,"  said  Dexter 
Freer,  quietly. 

"  I  want  it  as  a  story,  but  I  don't  want  it  for  Dr. 
Lemon." 

"  Does  he  call  himself  '  Doctor '  still  ?"  Mr.  Freer 
asked  of  young  Feeder. 

"  I  suppose  he  does  ;  I  call  him  so.  Of  course  he 
does  n't  practise.  But  once  a  doctor,  always  a  doctor." 

"  That 's  doctrine  for  Lady  Barb  !  " 

Sidney  Feeder  stared.  "  Has  n't  she  got  a  title 
too  ?  What  would  she  expect  him  to  be  ?  President 
of  the  United  States  ?  He  's  a  man  of  real  ability ; 
he  might  have  stood  at  the  head  of  his  profession. 
When  I  think  of  that,  I  want  to  swear.  What  did  his 
father  want  to  go  and  make  all  that  money  for  !  " 

"  It  must  certainly  be  odd  to  them  to  see  a  '  medi- 
cal man '  with  six  or  eight  millions,"  Mr.  Freer  ob- 
served. 

"  They  use  the  same  term  as  the  Choctaws,"  said 
his  wife. 

"  Why,  some  of  their  own  physicians  made  im- 
mense fortunes,"  Sidney  Feeder  declared. 

"  Could  n't  he  be  made  a.  baronet  by  the  Queen  ? " 
This  suggestion  came  from  Mrs.  Freer. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  143 

"  Yes,  then  he  would  be  aristocratic,"  said  the 
young  man.  "  But  I  don't  see  why  he  should  want 
to  marry  over  here ;  it  seems  to  me  to  be  going  out 
of  his  way.  However,  if  he  is  happy,  I  don't  care. 
I  like  him  very  much  ;  he  has  got  lots  of  ability.  If 
it  had  n't  been  for  his  father  he  would  have  made 
a  splendid  doctor.  But,  as  I  say,  he  takes  a  great  in- 
terest in  medical  science,  and  I  guess  he  means  to 
promote  it  all  he  can  —  with  his  fortune.  He  will 
always  be  doing  something  in  the  way  of  research. 
He  thinks  we  do  know  something,  and  he  is  bound 
we  shall  know  more.  I  hope  she  won't  prevent  him, 
the  young  marchioness  —  is  that  her  rank  ?  And 
I  hope  they  are  really  good  people.  He  ought  to  be 
very  useful.  I  should  want  to  know  a  good  deal 
about  the  family  I  was  going  to  marry  into." 

"  He  looked  to  me,  as  he  rode  there,  as  if  he  knew 
a  good  deal  about  the  Clements,"  Dexter  Freer  said, 
rising,  as  his  wife  suggested  that  they  ought  to  be 
going ;  "  and  he  looked  to  me  pleased  with  the 
knowledge.  There  they  come,  down  on  the  other  side. 
Will  you  walk  away  with  us,  or  will  you  stay  ? " 

"  Stop  him  and  ask  him,  and  then  come  and  tell 
us  —  in  Jermyn  Street."  This  was  Mrs.  Freer's  part- 
ing injunction  to  Sidney  Feeder. 

"He  ought  to  come  himself — tell  him  that,"  her 
husband  added. 

"  Well,  I  guess  I  '11  stay,"  said  the  young  man,  as 
his  companions  merged  themselves  in  the  crowd  that 
now  was  tending  toward  the  gates.  He  went  and 


144  LADY  BARBERINA. 

stood  by  the  barrier,  and  saw  Dr.  Lemon  and  his 
friends  pull  up  at  the  entrance  to  the  Bow,  where 
they  apparently  prepared  to  separate.  The  separation 
took  some  time,  and  Sidney  Feeder  became  interested. 
Lord  Canterville  and  his  younger  daughter  lingered 
to  talk  with  two  gentlemen,  also  mounted,  who  looked 
a  good  deal  at  the  legs  of  Lady  Agatha's  horse.  Jack- 
son. Lemon  and  Lady  Barberina  were  face  to  face, 
very  near  each  other;  and  she,  leaning  forward  a 
little,  stroked  the  overlapping  neck  of  his  glossy  bay. 
At  a  distance  he  appeared  to  be  talking,  and  she  to 
be  listening  and  saying  nothing.  "  Oh,  yes,  he 's 
making  love  to  her,"  thought  Sidney  Feeder.  Sud- 
denly her  father  turned  away  to  leave  the  Park,  and 
she  joined  him  and  disappeared,  while  Dr.  Lemon 
came  up  on  the  left  again,  as  if  for  a  final  gallop.  He 
had  not  gone  far  before  he  perceived  his  confrere,  who 
awaited  him  at  the  rail;  and  he  repeated  the  gesture 
which  Lady  Barberina  had  spoken  of  as  a  kissing 
of  his  hand,  though  it  must  be  added  that,  to  his 
friend's  eyes,  it  had  not  quite  that  significance. 
When  he  reached  the  point  where  Feeder  stood, 
he  pulled  up. 

"  If  I  had  known  you  were  coming  here,  I  would 
have  given  you  a  mount,"  he  said.  There  was  not 
in  his  person  that  irradiation  of  wealth  and  distinc- 
tion which  made  Lord  Canterville  glow  like  a  pic- 
ture ;  but  as  he  sat  there  with  his  little  legs  stuck  out, 
he  looked  very  bright,  and  sharp,  and  happy,  wearing 
in  his  degree  the  aspect  of  one  of  Fortune's  favorites. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  145 

He  had  a  thin,  keen,  delicate  face,  a  nose  very  care- 
fully finished,  a  rapid  eye,  a  trifle  hard  in  expression, 
and  a  small  mustache,  a  good  deal  cultivated.  He 
was  not  striking,  but  he  was  very  positive,  and  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  he  was  full  of  purpose. 

"  How  many  horses  have  you  got  —  about  forty  ? " 
his  compatriot  inquired,  in  response  to  his  greeting. 

"  About  five  hundred,"  said  Jackson  Lemon. 

"Did  you  mount  your  friends  —  the  three  you 
were  riding  with  ? " 

"  Mount  them  ?  They  have  got  the  best  horses 
in  England." 

"  Did  they  sell  you  this  one  ? "  Sidney  Feeder  con- 
tinued, in  the  same  humorous  strain. 

"  What  do  you  think  of  him  ? "  said  his  friend,  not 
deigning  to  answer  this  question. 

"He's  an  awful  old  screw;  I  wonder  he  can 
carry  you." 

"  Where  did  you  get  your  hat  ? "  asked  Dr. 
Lemon,  in  return. 

"I  got  it  in  New  York.  What's  the  matter 
with  it?" 

"It's  very  beautiful;  I  wish  I  had  bought  one 
like  it," 

"The  head's  the  thing  —  not  the  hat.  I  don't 
mean  yours,  but  mine.  There  is  something  very 
deep  in  your  question ;  I  must  think  it  over." 

"  Don't  —  don't,"  said  Jackson  Lemon ;  "  you  will 
never  get  to  the  bottom  of  it  Are  you  having  a  good 
time?" 

10 


146  LADY  BAEBER1NA. 

"  A  glorious  time.     Have  you  been  up  to-day  ? " 

"  Up  among  the  doctors  ?  No ;  I  have  had  a  lot  of 
things  to  do." 

"We  had  a  very  interesting  discussion.  I  made 
a  few  remarks." 

"You  ought  to  have  told  me.  What  were  they 
about  ? " 

"  About  the  intermarriage  of  races,  from  the  point 
of  view ."  And  Sidney  Feeder  paused  a  mo- 
ment, occupied  with  the  attempt  to  scratch  the  nose 
of  his  friend's  horse. 

"From  the  point  of  view  of  the  progeny,  I 
suppose  ? " 

"Not  at  all;  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  old 
friends." 

"  Damn  the  old  friends ! "  Dr.  Lemon  exclaimed, 
with  jocular  crudity. 

"  Is  it  true  that  you  are  going  to  marry  a  young 
marchioness  ? " 

The  face  of  the  young  man  in  the  saddle  became 
just  a  trifle  rigid,  and  his  firm  eyes  fixed  themselves 
on  Dr.  Feeder. 

"  Who  has  told  you  that  ? " 

"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Freer,  whom  I  met  just  now." 

"  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Freer  be  hanged !  And  who  told 
them  ? " 

"  Ever  so  many  people ;  I  don't  know  who." 

"  Gad,  how  things  are  tattled ! "  cried  Jackson 
Lemon,  with  some  asperity. 

"  I  can  see  it 's  true,  by  the  way  you  say  that." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  147 

"  Do  Freer  and  his  wife  believe  it  ? "  Jackson 
Lemon  went  on,  impatiently. 

"They  want  you  to  go  and  see  them:  you  can 
judge  for  yourself." 

"  I  will  go  and  see  them,  and  tell  them  to  mind 
their  business." 

"  In  Jermyn  Street ;  but  I  forget  the  number.  I 
am  sorry  the  marchioness  is  n't  American,"  Sidney 
Feeder  continued. 

"  If  I  should  marry  her,  she  would  be,"  said  his 
friend.  "  But  I  don't  see  what  difference  it  can 
make  to  you." 

"  Why,  she  11  look  down  on  the  profession ;  and  I 
don't  like  that  from  your  wife." 

"  That  will  touch  me  more  than  you." 
"  Then  it  is  true  ? "  cried  Feeder,  more  seriously, 
looking  up  at  his  friend. 

"  She  won't  look  down ;  I  will  answer  for  that/* 
"  You  won't  care ;  you  are  out  of  it  aD  now." 
"  No,  I  am  not ;  I  mean  to  do  a  great  deal  of  work." 
"I  will  believe  that  when  I  see  it,"  said  Sidney 
Feeder,  who  was  by  no  means  perfectly  incredulous, 
but  who  thought  it  salutary  to  take  that  tone.     "  I 
am  not  sure  that  you  have  any  right  to  work,  —  you 
oughtn't  to  have   everything;    you  ought   to  leave 
the  field  to  us.     You  must  pay  the  penalty  of  being 
so  rich.     You  would  have  been  celebrated  if  you  had 
continued  to  practise,  —  more  celebrated  than  any 
one.     But  you  won't  be  now,  —  you  can't  be.     Some 
one  else  will  be,  in  your  place." 


148  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Jackson  Lemon  listened  to  this,  but  without  meet- 
ing the  eyes  of  the  speaker ;  not,  however,  as  if  he 
were  avoiding  them,  but  as  if  the  long  stretch  of  the 
Eide,  now  less  and  less  obstructed,  invited  him,  and 
made  his  companion's  talk  a  little  retarding.  Never- 
theless, he  answered,  deliberately  and  kindly  enough : 
"  I  hope  it  will  be  you ; "  and  he  bowed  to  a  lady 
who  rode  past. 

"Very  likely  it  will.  I  hope  I  make  you  feel 
badly,  —  that's  what  I'm  trying  to  do." 

"  Oh,  awfully  ! "  cried  Jackson  Lemon ;  "  all  the 
more  that  I  am  not  in  the  least  engaged." 

"  Well,  that 's  good.  Won't  you  come  up  to-mor- 
row ? "  Dr.  Feeder  went  on. 

"I'll  try,  my  dear  fellow;  I  can't  be  sure.  By 
by!" 

"  Oh,  you  're  lost  anyway ! "  cried  Sidney  Feeder, 
as  the  other  started  away. 

n. 

IT  was  Lady  Marmaduke,  the  wife  of  Sir  Henry 
Marmaduke,  who  had  introduced  Jackson  Lemon  to 
Lady  Beauchemin ;  after  which  Lady  Beauchemin 
had  made  him  acquainted  with  her  mother  and  sis- 
ters. Lady  Marmaduke  was  also  transatlantic;  she 
had  been  for  her  conjugal  baronet  the  most  permanent 
consequence  of  a  tour  in  the  United  States.  At  pres^ 
ent,  at  the  end  of  ten  years,  she  knew  her  London  as 
she  had  never  known  her  New  York,  so  that  it  had 


LADY  BARBERINA.  149 

been  easy  for  her  to  be,  as  she  called  herself,  Jackson 
Lemon's  social  godmother.  She  had  views  with  re- 
gard to  his  career,  and  these  views  fitted  into  a  social 
scheme  which,  if  our  space  permitted,  I  should  be  glad 
to  lay  before  the  reader  in  its  magnitude.  She  wished 
to  add  an  arch  or  two  to  the  bridge  on  which  she  had 
effected  her  transit  from  America  ;  and  it  was  her  be- 
lief that  Jackson  Lemon  might  furnish  the  materials. 
This  bridge,  as  yet  a  somewhat  sketchy  and  rickety 
structure,  she  saw  (in  the  future)  boldly  stretching 
from  one  solid  pillar  to  another.  It  would  have  to  go 
both  ways,  for  reciprocity  was  the  keynote  of  Lady 
Marmaduke's  plan.  It  was  her  belief  that  an  ulti- 
mate fusion  was  inevitable,  and  that  those  who  were 
the  first  to  understand  the  situation  would  gain  the 
most.  The  first  time  Jackson  Lemon  had  dined  with 
her,  he  met  Lady  Beauchemiu,  who  was  her  intimate 
friend.  Lady  Beauchemin  was  remarkably  gracious  ; 
she  asked  him  to  come  and  see  her  as  if  she  really 
meant  it.  He  presented  himself,  and  in  her  drawing- 
room  met  her  mother,  who  happened  to  be  calling  at 
the  same  moment.  Lady  Canterville,  not  less  friendly 
than  her  daughter,  invited  him  down  to  Pasterns  for 
Easter  week;  and  before  a  month  had  passed  it 
seemed  to  him  that,  though  he  was  not  what  he 
would  have  called  intimate  at  any  house  in  Lon- 
don, the  door  of  the  house  of  Clement  opened  to 
him  pretty  often.  This  was  a  considerable  good  for- 
tune, for  it  always  opened  upon  a  charming  picture. 
The  inmates  were  a  blooming  and  beautiful  race,  and 


150  LADY  BARBERINA. 

their  interior  had  an  aspect  of  the  ripest  comfort.  It 
was  not  the  splendor  of  New  York  (as  New  York  had 
lately  begun  to  appear  to  the  young  man),  but  a 
splendor  in  which  there  was  an  unpurchasable  ingre- 
dient of  age.  He  himself  had  a  great  deal  of  money, 
and  money  was  good,  even  when  it  was  new ;  but  old 
money  was  the  best.  Even  after  he  learned  that 
Lord  Canterville's  fortune  was  more  ancient  than 
abundant,  it  was  still  the  mellowness  of  the  golden 
element  that  struck  him.  It  was  Lady  Beauchemin 
who  had  told  him  that  her  father  was  not  rich ;  hav- 
ing told  him,  besides  this,  many  surprising  things,  — 
things  that  were  surprising  in  themselves,  or  surpris- 
ing on  her  lips.  This  struck  him  afresh  later  that 
evening  —  the  day  he  met  Sidney  Feeder  in  the 
Park.  He  dined  out,  in  the  company  of  Lady  Beau- 
chemin, and  afterward,  as  she  was  alone,  —  her  hus- 
band had  gone  down  to  listen  to  a  debate, — she  offered 
to  "  take  him  on."  She  was  going  to  several  places, 
and  he  must  be  going  to  some  of  them.  They  com- 
pared notes ;  and  it  was  settled  that  they  should  pro- 
ceed together  to  the  Trumpington's,  whither,  also,  it 
appeared  at  eleven  o'clock  that  all  the  world  was 
going,  the  approach  to  the  house  being  choked  for 
half  a  mile  with  carriages.  It  was  a  close,  muggy 
night ;  Lady  Beauchemin's  chariot,  in  its  place  in  the 
rank,  stood  still  for  long  periods.  In  his  corner  be- 
side her,  through  the  open  window,  Jackson  Lemon, 
rather  hot,  rather  oppressed,  looked  out  on  the  moist, 
greasy  pavement,  over  which  was  flung,  a  considerable 


LADY  BARBERINA.  151 

distance  up  and  down,  the  flare  of  a  public-house. 
Lady  Beauchemin,  however,  was  not  impatient,  for 
she  had  a  purpose  in  her  mind,  and  now  she  could 
say  what  she  wished. 

"Do  you  really  love  her?"  That  was  the  first 
thing  she  said. 

"  Well,  I  guess  so,"  Jackson  Lemon  answered,  as 
if  he  did  not  recognize  the  obligation  to  be  serious. 

Lady  Beauchemin  looked  at  him  a  moment  in 
silence ;  he  felt  her  gaze,  and  turning  his  eyes,  saw 
her  face,  partly  shadowed,  with  the  aid  of  a  street- 
lamp.  She  was  not  so  pretty  as  Lady  Barberina ;  her 
countenance  had  a  certain  sharpness  ;  her  hair,  very 
light  in  color  and  wonderfully  frizzled,  almost  cov- 
ered her  eyes,  the  expression  of  which,  however, 
together  with  that  of  her  pointed  nose,  and  the  glitter 
of  several  diamonds,  emerged  from  the  gloom.  "  You 
don't  seem  to  know.  I  never  saw  a  man  in  such  an 
odd  state,"  she  presently  remarked. 

"You  push  me  a  little  too  much;  I  must  have 
time  to  think  of  it,"  the  young  man  went  on.  "  You 
know  in  my  country  they  allow  us  plenty  of  time." 
He  had  several  little  oddities  of  expression,  of  which 
he  was  perfectly  conscious,  and  which  he  found  con- 
venient, for  they  protected  him  in  a  society  in  which 
a  lonely  American  was  rather  exposed ;  they  gave  him 
the  advantage  which  corresponded  with  certain  draw- 
backs. He  had  very  few  natural  Americanisms,  but 
the  occasional  use  of  one,  discreetly  chosen,  made  him 
appear  simpler  than  he  really  was,  and  he  had  his 


152  LADY  BARBER1NA. 

reasons  for  wishing  this  result.  He  was  not  simple ; 
he  was  subtle,  circumspect,  shrewd,  and  perfectly 
aware  that  he  might  make  mistakes.  There  was  a 
danger  of  his  making  a  mistake  at  present,  —  a  mis- 
take which  would  be  immensely  grave.  He  was  de- 
termined only  to  succeed.  It  is  true  that  for  a  great 
success  he  would  take  a  certain  risk ;  but  the  risk 
was  to  be  considered,  and  he  gained  time  while  he 
multiplied  his  guesses  and  talked  about  his  country. 

"  You  may  take  ten  years  if  you  like,"  said  Lady 
Beauchemin.  "  I  am  in  no  hurry  whatever  to  make 
you  my  brother-in-law.  Only  you  must  remember 
that  you  spoke  to  me  first." 

"What  did  I  say?" 

"You  told  me  that  Barberina  was  the  finest  girl 
you  had  seen  in  England." 

"Oh,  I  am  willing  to  stand  by  that;  I  like  her 
type." 

"  I  should  think  you  might !  " 

"Hike  her  very  much, — with  all  her  peculiarities." 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  her  peculiarities  ? " 

"  Well,  she  has  some  peculiar  ideas,"  said  Jackson 
Lemon,  in  a  tone  of  the  sweetest  reasonableness, 
"  and  she  has  a  peculiar  way  of  speaking." 

"  Ah,  you  can't  expect  us  to  speak  as  well  as  you ! " 
cried  Lady  Beauchemin. 

"  I  don't  know  why  not ;  you  do  some  things  much 
better." 

"  We  have  our  own  ways,  at  any  rate,  and  we  think 
them  the  best  in  the  world.  One  of  them  is  not  to 


LADY  BARBERINA.  153 

let  a  gentleman  devote  himself  to  a  girl  for  three  or 
four  months  without  some  sense  of  responsibility.  If 
you  don't  wish  to  marry  my  sister,  you  ought  to  go 
away." 

"  I  ought  never  to  have  come,"  said  Jackson  Lemon. 

"  I  can  scarcely  agree  to  that ;  for  I  should  have 
lost  the  pleasure  of  knowing  you." 

"  It  would  have  spared  you  this  duty,  which  you 
dislike  very  much." 

"  Asking  you  about  your  intentions  ?  I  don't  dis- 
like it  at  all ;  it  amuses  me  extremely." 

"  Should  you  like  your  sister  to  marry  me  ? "  asked 
Jackson  Lemon,  with  great  simplicity. 

If  he  expected  to  take  Lady  Beauchemin  by  sur- 
prise he  was  disappointed;  for  she  was  perfectly  pre- 
pared to  commit  herself.  "  I  should  like  it  very  much. 
I  think  English  and  American  society  ought  to  be  but 
one  —  I  mean  the  best  of  each  —  a  great  whole." 

"  Will  you  allow  me  to  ask  whether  Lady  Marma- 
duke  suggested  that  to  you  ? " 

"We  have  often  talked  of  it." 

"  Oh  yes,  that 's  her  aim." 

"  Well,  it 's  my  aim  too.  I  think  there 's  a  great 
deal  to  be  done." 

"  And  you  would  like  me  to  do  it  ? " 

"  To  begin  it,  precisely.  Don't  you  think  we  ought 
to  see  more  of  each  other  ? —  I  mean  the  best  in  each 
country." 

Jackson  Lemon  was  silent  a  moment.  "I  am 
afraid  I  have  n't  any  general  ideas.  If  I  should 


154  LADY  BARBERINA. 

marry  an  English  girl,  it  would  n't  be  for  the  good  of 
the  species." 

"  Well,  we  want  to  be  mixed  a  little ;  that  I  am 
sure  of,"  Lady  Beauchemin  said. 

"  You  certainly  got  that  from  Lady  Marmaduke." 

"  It 's  too  tiresome,  your  not  consenting  to  be 
serious !  But  my  father  will  make  you  so,"  Lady 
Beauchemin  went  on.  "  I  may  as  well  let  you  know 
that  he  intends  in  a  day  or  two  to  ask  you  your  in- 
tentions. That 's  all  I  wished  to  say  to  you.  I  think 
you  ought  to  be  prepared." 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you ;  Lord  Canterville  will 
do  quite  right." 

There  was,  to  Lady  Beauchemin,  something  really 
unfathomable  in  this  little  American  doctor,  whom 
she  had  taken  up  on  grounds  of  large  policy,  and 
who,  though  he  was  assumed  to  have  sunk  the  medi- 
cal character,  was  neither  handsome  nor  distinguished, 
but  only  immensely  rich  arid  quite  original,  for  he 
was  not  insignificant.  It  was  unfathomable,  to  begin 
with,  that  a  medical  man  should  be  so  rich,  or  that 
so  rich  a  man  should  be  a  doctor ;  it  was  even,  to  an 
eye  which  was  always  gratified  by  suitability,  rather 
irritating.  Jackson  Lemon  himself  could  have  ex- 
plained it  better  than  any  one  else,  but  this  was  an 
explanation  that  one  could  scarcely  ask  for.  There 
were  other  things :  his  cool  acceptance  of  certain 
situations ;  his  general  indisposition  to  explain;  his 
way  of  taking  refuge  in  jokes,  which  at  times  had 
not  even  the  merit  of  being  American  ;  his  way,  too, 


LADY  BARBERINA.  155 

of  appearing  to  be  a  suitor  without  being  an  aspirant. 
Lady  Beauchemin,  however,  was,  like  Jackson  Lemon, 
prepared  to  run  a  certain  risk.  His  reserves  made 
him  slippery ;  but  that  was  only  when  one  pressed. 
She  flattered  herself  that  she  could  handle  people 
lightly.  "  My  father  will  be  sure  to  act  with  perfect 
tact,"  she  said  ;  "  of  course,  if  you  should  n't  care  to 
be  questioned,  you  can  go  out  of  town."  She  had 
the  air  of  really  wishing  to  make  everything  easy 
for  him. 

"  I  don't  want  to  go  out-  of  town ;  I  am  enjoying  it 
far  too  much  here,"  her  companion  answered.  "  And 
would  n't  your  father  have  a  right  to  ask  me  what  I 
meant  by  that  ? " 

Lady  Beauchemin  hesitated  ;  she  was  slightly  per- 
plexed. But  in  a  moment  she  exclaimed:  "He  is 
incapable  of  saying  anything  vulgar  i " 

She  had  not  really  answered  his  inquiry,  and  he 
was  conscious  of  that ;  but  he  was  quite  ready  to  say 
to  her,  a  little  later,  as  he  guided  her  steps  from  the 
brougham  to  the  strip  of  carpet  which,  between 
a  somewhat  rickety  border  of  striped  cloth  and  a 
double  row  of  waiting  footmen,  policemen,  and  dingy 
amateurs  of  both  sexes,  stretched  from  the  curbstone 
to  the  portal  of  the  Trumpingtons,  "Of  course  I  shall 
not  wait  for  Lord  Canterville  to  speak  to  me." 

He  had  been  expecting  some  such  announcement 
as  this  from  Lady  Beauchemin,  and  he  judged  that 
her  father  would  do  no  more  than  his  duty.  He 
knew  that  he  ought  to  be  prepared  with  an  answer 


156  LADY  BARBER1NA. 

to  Lord  Canterville,  and  he  wondered  at  himself  for 
not  yet  having  come  to  the  point.  Sidney  Feeder's 
question  in  the  Park  had  made  him  feel  rather  point- 
less ;  it  was  the  first  allusion  that  had  been  made  to 
his  possible  marriage,  except  on  the  part  of  Lady 
Beauchemin.  None  of  his  own  people  were  in  Lon- 
don ;  he  was  perfectly  independent,  and  even  if  his 
mother  had  been  within  reach  he  could  not  have 
consulted  her  on  the  subject.  He  loved  her  dearly, 
better  than  any  one ;  but  she  was  not  a  woman  to 
consult,  for  she  approved  of  whatever  he  did :  it  was 
her  standard.  He  was  careful  not  to  be  too  serious 
when  he  talked  with  Lady  Beauchemin ;  but  he  was 
very  serious  indeed  as  he  thought  over  the  matter 
within  himself,  which  he  did  even  among  the  diver- 
sions of  the  next  half  hour,  while  he  squeezed  ob- 
liquely and  slowly  through  the  crush  in  Mrs.  Trump- 
ington's  drawing-room.  At  the  end  of  the  half-hour 
he  came  away,  and  at  the  door  he  found  Lady  Beau- 
chemin, from  whom  he  had  separated  on  entering 
the  house,  and  who,  this  time  with  a  companion  of 
her  own  sex,  was  awaiting  her  carriage  and  still 
"  going  on."  He  gave  her  his  arm  into  the  street, 
and  as  she  stepped  into  the  vehicle  she  repeated  that 
she  wished  he  would  go  out  of  town  for  a  few  days. 

"  Who,  then,  would  tell  me  what  to  do  ? "  he  asked, 
for  answer,  looking  at  her  through  the  window. 

She  might  tell  him  what  to  do,  but  he  felt  free, 
all  the  same;  and  he  was  determined  this  should 
continue.  To  prove  it  to  himself  he  jumped  into  a 


LADY  BARBERINA.  157 

hansom  and  drove  back  to  Brook  Street  to  his  hotel, 
instead  of  proceeding  to  a  bright- windowed  house  in 
Portland  Place,  where  he  knew  that  after  midnight 
he  should  find  Lady  Canterville  and  her  daughters. 
There  had  been  a  reference  to  the  subject  between 
Lady  Barberina  and  himself  during  their  ride,  and 
she  would  probably  expect  him ;  but  it  made  him 
taste  his  liberty  not  to  go,  and  he  liked  to  taste  his 
liberty.  He  was  aware  that  to  taste  it  in  perfection 
he  ought  to  go  to  bed ;  but  he  did  not  go  to  bed,  he 
did  not  even  take  off  his  hat.  He  walked  up  and 
down  his  sitting-room,  with  his  head  surmounted  by 
this  ornament,  a  good  deal  tipped  back,  and  his  hands 
in  his  pockets.  There  were  a  good  many  cards  stuck 
into  the  frame  of  the  mirror  over  his  chimney-piece, 
and  every  time  he  passed  the  place  he  seemed  to  see 
what  was  written  on  one  of  them,  — the  name  of  the 
mistress  of  the  house  in  Portland  Place,  his  own 
name,  and,  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner,  the  words : 
'•'A  small  Dance."  Of  course,  now,  he  must  make 
up  his  mind ;  he  would  make  it  up  to  the  next  day : 
that  was  what  he  said  to  himself  as  he  walked  up 
and  down ;  and  according  to  his  decision  he  would 
speak  to  Lord  Canterville,  or  he  would  take  the 
night-express  to  Paris.  It  was  better  meanwhile 
that  he  should  not  see  Lady  Barberina.  It  was  vivid 
to  him,  as  he  paused  occasionally,  looking  vaguely  at 
that  card  in  the  chimney-glass,  that  he  had  come 
pretty  far ;  and  he  had  come  so  far  because  he  was 
under  the  charm,  —  yes,  he  was  in  love  with  Lady 


158  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Barb.  There  was  no  doubt  whatever  of  that ;  he  had 
a  faculty  for  diagnosis,  and  he  knew  perfectly  well 
what  was  the  matter  with  him.  He  wasted  no  time 
in  musing  upon  the  mystery  of  this  passion,  in  won- 
dering whether  he  might  not  have  escaped  it  by  a 
little  vigilance  at  first,  or  whether  it  would  die  out 
if  he  should  go  away.  He  accepted  it  frankly,  for 
the  sake  of  the  pleasure  it  gave  him,  —  the  girl  was 
the  delight  of  his  eyes, —  and  confined  himself  to 
considering  whether  such  a  marriage  would  square 
with  his  general  situation.  This  would  not  at  all 
necessarily  follow  from  the  fact  that  he  was  in  love ; 
too  many  other  things  would  come  in  between.  The 
most  important  of  these  was  the  change,  not  only  of 
the  geographical,  but  of  the  social,  standpoint  for  his 
wife,  and  a  certain  readjustment  that  it  would  involve 
in  his  own  relation  to  things.  He  was  not  inclined 
to  readjustments,  and  there  was  no  reason  why  he 
should  be ;  his  own  position  was  in  most  respects  so 
advantageous.  But  the  girl  tempted  him  almost  irre- 
sistibly, satisfying  his  imagination  both  as  a  lover 
and  as  a  student  of  the  human  organism ;  she  was  so 
blooming,  so  complete,  of  a  type  so  rarely  encoun- 
tered in  that  degree  of  perfection.  Jackson  Lemon 
was  not  an  Anglo-maniac,  but  he  admired  the  physi- 
cal conditions  of  the  English,  —  their  complexion, 
their  temperament,  their  tissue ;  and  Lady  Bar- 
berina  struck  him  in  flexible,  virginal  form,  as  a  won- 
derful compendium  of  these  elements.  There  was 
something  simple  and  robust  in  her  beauty;  it  had 


LADY  BARBERINA.  159 

the  quietness  of  an  old  Greek  statue,  without  the 
vulgarity  of  the  modern  simper  or  of  contemporary 
prettiness.  Her  head  was  antique ;  and  though  her 
conversation  was  quite  of  the  present  period,  Jackson 
Lemon  had  said  to  himself  that  there  was  sure  to  be 
in  her  soul  a  certain  primitive  sincerity  which  would 
match  with  the  outline  of  her  brow.  He  saw  her  as 
she  might  be  in  the  future,  the  beautiful  mother  of 
beautiful  children,  in  whom  the  look  of  race  should 
be  conspicuous.  He  should  like  his  children  to  have 
the  look  of  race,  and  he  was  not  unaware  that  he 
must  take  his  precautions  accordingly.  A  great  many 
people  had  it  in  England ;  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to 
him  to  see  it,  especially  as  no  one  had  it  so  unmis- 
takably as  the  second  daughter  of  Lord  Canterville. 
It  would  be  a  great  luxury  to  call  such  a  woman 
one's  own ;  nothing  could  be  more  evident  than  that, 
because  it  made  no  difference  that  she  was  not  strik- 
ingly clever.  Striking  cleverness  was  not  a  part  of 
harmonious  form  and  the  English  complexion;  it 
was  associated  with  the  modern  simper,  which  was 
a  result  of  modern  nerves.  If  Jackson  Lemon  had 
wanted  a  nervous  wife,  of  course  he  could  have  found 
her  at  home ;  but  this  tall,  fair  girl,  whose  character, 
like  her  figure,  appeared  mainly  to  have  been  formed 
by  riding  across  country,  was  differently  put  together. 
All  the  same,  would  it  suit  his  book,  as  they  said  in 
London,  to  marry  her  and  transport  her  to  New  York  ? 
He  came  back  to  this  question ;  came  back  to  it  with 
a  persistency  which,  had  she  been  admitted  to  a  view 


160  LADY  BARBER1NA. 

of  it,  would  have  tried  the  patience  of  Lady  Beau- 
chemin.  She  had  been  irritated,  more  than  once,  at 
his  appearing  to  attach  himself  so  exclusively  to  this 
horn  of  the  dilemma,  —  as  if  it  could  possibly  fail  to 
be  a  good  thing  for  a  little  American  doctor  to  marry 
the  daughter  of  an  English  peer.  It  would  have 
been  more  becoming,  in  her  ladyship's  eyes,  that  he 
should  take  that  for  granted  a  little  more,  and  the 
consent  of  her  ladyship's  —  of  their  ladyships'  — 
family  a  little  less.  They  looked  at  the  matter  so 
differently !  Jackson  Lemon  was  conscious  that  if 
he  should  marry  Lady  Barberina  Clement,  it  would 
be  because  it  suited  him,  and  not  because  it  suited 
his  possible  sisters-in-law.  He  believed  that  he  acted 
in  all  things  by  his  own  will,  —  an  organ  for  which 
he  had  the  highest  respect. 

It  would  have  seemed,  however,  that  on  this  occa- 
sion it  was  not  working  very  regularly,  for  though 
he  had  come  home  to  go  to  bed,  the  stroke  of  half- 
past  twelve  saw  him  jump,  not  into  his  couch,  but 
into  a  hansom  which  the  whistle  of  the  porter  had 
summoned  to  the  door  of  his  hotel,  and  in  which  he 
rattled  off  to  Portland  Place.  Here  he  found  —  in  a 
very  large  house — an  assembly  of  three  hundred 
people,  and  a  band  of  music  concealed  in  a  bower  of 
azaleas.  Lady  Canterville  had  not  arrived ;  he  wand- 
ered through  the  rooms  and  assured  himself  of  that. 
He  also  discovered  a  very  good  conservatory,  where 
there  were  banks  and  pyramids  of  azaleas.  He 
watched  the  top  of  the  staircase,  but  it  was  a  long 


LADY  BARBERINA.  161 

time  before  he  saw  what  he  was  looking  for,  and 
his  impatience  at  last  was  extreme.  The  reward, 
however,  when  it  came,  was  all  that  he  could  have 
desired.  It  was  a  little  smile  from  Lady  Barberina, 
who  stood  behind  her  mother  while  the  latter  ex- 
tended her  finger-tips  to  the  hostess.  The  entrance 
of  this  charming  woman,  with  her  beautiful  daugh- 
ters—  always  a  noticeable  incident — was  effected 
with  a  certain  brilliancy,  and  just  now  it  was  agree- 
able to  Jackson  Lemon  to  think  that  it  concerned 
him  more  than  any  one  else  in  the  house.  Tall,  daz- 
zling, indifferent,  looking  about  her  as  if  she  saw  very 
little,  Lady  Barberina  was  certainly  a  figure  round 
which  a  young  man's  fancy  might  revolve.  She  was 
very  quiet  and  simple,  had  little  manner  and  little 
movement ;  but  her  detachment  was  not  a  vulgar  art. 
She  appeared  to  efface  herself,  to  wait  till,  in  the  nat- 
ural course,  she  should  be  attended  to ;  and  in  this 
there  was  evidently  no  exaggeration,  for  she  was  too 
proud  not  to  have  perfect  confidence.  Her  sister, 
smaller,  slighter,  with  a  little  surprised  smile,  which 
seemed  to  say  that  in  her  extreme  innocence  she  was 
yet  prepared  for  anything,  having  heard,  indirectly, 
such  extraordinary  things  about  society,  was  much 
more  impatient  and  more  expressive,  and  projected 
across  a  threshold  the  pretty  radiance  of  her  eyes  and 
teeth  before  her  mother's  name  was  announced.  Lady 
Canterville  was  thought  by  many  persons  to  be  very 
superior  to  her  daughters  :  she  had  kept  even  more 
beauty  than  she  had  given  them ;  and  it  was  a  beauty 

11 


162  LADY  BARBERINA. 

which  had  been  called  intellectual.  She  had  extra- 
ordinary sweetness,  without  any  definite  professions ; 
her  manner  was  mild  almost  to  tenderness ;  there  was 
even  a  kind  of  pity  in  it.  Moreover,  her  features 
were  perfect,  and  nothing  could  be  more  gently  gra- 
cious than  a  way  she  had  of  speaking,  or  rather,  of 
listening,  to  people,  with  her  head  inclined  a  little 
to  one  side.  Jackson  Lemon  liked  her  very  much, 
and  she  had  certainly  been  most  kind  to  him.  He 
approached  Lady  Barberina  as  soon  as  he  could  do  so 
without  an  appearance  of  precipitation,  and  said  to 
her  that  he  hoped  very  much  she  would  not  dance. 
He  was  a  master  of  the  art  which  flourishes  in  New 
York  above  every  other,  and  he  had  guided  her  through 
a  dozen  waltzes  with  a  skill  which,  as  she  felt,  left 
absolutely  nothing  to  be  desired.  But  dancing  was 
not  his  business  to-night.  She  smiled  a  little  at  the 
expression  of  his  hope. 

"That  is  what  mamma  has  brought  us  here  for," 
she  said ;  "  she  does  n't  like  it  if  we  don't  dance." 

"  How  does  she  know  whether  she  likes  it  or  not  ? 
You  have  always  danced." 

"  Once  I  did  n't,"  said  Lady  Barberina. 

He  told  her  that,  at  any  rate,  he  would  settle  it 
with  her  mother,  and  persuaded  her  to  wander  with 
him  into  the  conservatory,  where  there  were  colored 
lights  suspended  among  the  plants,  and  a  vault  of 
verdure  overhead.  In  comparison  with  the  other 
rooms  the  conservatory  was  dusky  and  remote.  But 
they  were  not  alone;  half  a  dozen  other  couples 


LADY  BARBERINA.  163 

were  in  possession.  The  gloom  was  rosy  with  the 
slopes  of  azalea,  and  suffused  with  mitigated  music, 
which  made  it  possible  to  talk  without  consideration 
of  one's  neighbors.  Nevertheless,  though  it  was  only 
in  looking  back  on  the  scene  later  that  Lady  Barberina 
perceived  this,  these  dispersed  couples  were  talking 
very  softly.  She  did  not  look  at  them ;  it  seemed  to 
her  that,  virtually,  she  was  alone  with  Jackson  Lemon. 
She  said  something  about  the  flowers,  about  the  fra- 
grance of  the  air ;  for  all  answer  to  which  he  asked 
her,  as  he  stood  there  before  her,  a  question  by  which 
she  might  have  been  exceedingly  startled. 

"  How  do  people  who  marry  in  England  ever  know 
each  other  before  marriage  ?  They  have  no  chance." 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know,"  said  Lady  Barberina ; 
"  I  never  was  married." 

"  It 's  very  different  in  my  country.  There  a  man 
may  see  much  of  a  girl ;  he  may  come  and  see  her, 
he  may  be  constantly  alone  with  her.  I  wish  you 
allowed  that  over  here." 

Lady  Barberina  suddenly  examined  the  less  orna- 
mental side  of  her  fan,  as  if  it  had  never  occurred  to 
her  before  to  look  at  it  "  It  must  be  so  very  odd, 
America,"  she  murmured  at  last. 

"  Well,  I  guess  in  that  matter  we  are  right ;  over 
here  it 's  a  leap  in  the  dark." 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know,"  said  the  girl.  She  had 
folded  her  fan ;  she  stretched  out  her  arm  mechani- 
cally, and  plucked  a  sprig  of  azalea. 

"I   guess  it   doesn't  signify,  after  all,"  Jackson 


164  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Lemon  remarked.  "  They  say  that  love  is  blind  at  the 
best."  His  keen  young  face  was  bent  upon  hers ;  his 
thumbs  were  in  the  pockets  of  his  trousers  ;  he  smiled 
a  little,  showing  his  fine  teeth.  She  said  nothing,  but 
only  pulled  her  azalea  to  pieces.  She  was  usually  so 
quiet,  that  this  small  movement  looked  restless. 

"  This  is  the  first  time  I  have  seen  you  in  the  least 
without  a  lot  of  people,"  he  went  on. 

"  Yes,  it 's  very  tiresome,"  she  said. 

"  I  have  been  sick  of  it ;  I  did  n't  want  to  come 
here  to-night." 

She  had  not  met  his  eyes,  though  she  knew  they 
were  seeking  her  own.  But  now  she  looked  at  him  a 
moment.  She  had  never  objected  to  his  appearance, 
and  in  this  respect  she  had  no  repugnance  to  over- 
come. She  liked  a  man  to  be  tall  and  handsome,  and 
Jackson  Lemon  was  neither ;  but  when  she  was  six- 
teen, and  as  tall  herself  as  she  was  to  be  at  twenty, 
she  had  been  in  love  (for  three  weeks)  with  one  of 
her  cousins,  a  little  fellow  in  the  Hussars,  who  was. 
shorter  even  than  the  American,  shorter,  consequently, 
than  herself.  This  proved  that  distinction  might  be 
independent  of  stature  —  not  that  she  ever  reasoned 
it  out.  Jackson  Lemon's  facial  spareness,  his  bright 
little  eye,  which  seemed  always  to  be  measuring 
things,  struck  her  as  original,  and  she  thought  them 
very  cutting,  which  would  do  very  well  for  a  husband 
of  hers.  As  she  made  this  reflection,  of  course  it 
never  occurred  to  her  that  she  herself  might  be  cut ; 
she  was  not  a  sacrificial  lamb.  She  perceived  that 


LADY  BARBERINA.  165 

his  features  expressed  a  mind  —  a  mind  that  would 
be  rather  superior.  She  would  never  have  taken  him 
for  a  doctor ;  though,  indeed,  when  all  was  said,  that 
was  very  negative,  and  did  n't  account  for  the  way  he 
imposed  himself. 

"  Why,  then,  did  you  come  ? "  she  asked,  in  answer 
to  his  last  speech. 

"  Because  it  seems  to  me  after  all  better  to  see  you 
in  this  way  than  not  to  see  you  at  all ;  I  want  to 
know  you  better." 

"  I  don't  think  I  ought  to  stay  here,"  said  Lady 
Barberina,  looking  round  her. 

"  Don't  go  till  I  have  told  you  I  love  you,"  mur- 
mured the  young  man. 

She  made  no  exclamation,  indulged  in  no  start ;  he 
could  not  see  even  that  she  changed  color.  She  took 
his  request  with  a  noble  simplicity,  with  her  head 
erect  and  her  eyes  lowered. 

"  I  don't  think  you  have  a  right  to  tell  me  that." 

"  Why  not  ? "  Jackson  Lemon  demanded.  "  I  wish 
to  claim  the  right ;  I  wish  you  to  give  it  to  me." 

"  I  can't  —  I  don't  know  you.  You  have  said  it 
yourself." 

"  Can't  you  have  a  little  faith  ?  That  will  help  us 
to  know  each  other  better.  It 's  disgusting,  the  want 
of  opportunity ;  even  at  Pasterns  I  could  scarcely 
get  a  walk  with  you.  But  I  have  the  greatest  faith 
in  you.  I  feel  that  I  love  you,  and  I  could  n't  do 
more  than  that  at  the  end  of  six  months.  I  love  your 
beauty  —  I  love  you  from  head  to  foot.  Don't  move, 


166  LADY  BARBERINA. 

please  don't  move."  He  lowered  his  tone ;  but  it 
went  straight  to  her  ear,  and  it  must  be  believed  that 
it  had  a  certain  eloquence.  For  himself, .after  he  had 
heard  himself  say  these  words,  all  his  being  was  in 
a  glow.  It  was  a  luxury  to  speak  to  her  of  her 
beauty;  it  brought  him  nearer  to  her  than  he  had 
ever  been.  But  the  color  had  come  into  her  face, 
and  it  seemed  to  remind  him  that  her  beauty  was 
not  all.  "  Everything  about  you  is  sweet  and  noble," 
he  went  on  ;  "  everything  is  dear  to  me.  I  am  sure 
you  are  good.  I  don't  know  what  you  think  of  me  ; 
I  asked  Lady  Beauchemin  to  tell  me,  and  she  told 
me  to  judge  for  myself.  Well,  then,  I  judge  you  like 
me.  Haven 't  I  a  right  to  assume  that  till  the  con- 
trary is  proved  ?  May  I  speak  to  your  father  ?  That 's 
what  I  want  to  know.  I  have  been  waiting  ;  but  now 
what  should  I  wait  for  longer  ?  I  want  to  be  able 
to  tell  him  that  you  have  given  me  some  hope.  I 
suppose  I  ought  to  speak  to  him  first.  I  meant  to, 
to-morrow,  but  meanwhile,  to-night,  I  thought  I 
would  just  put  this  in.  In  my  country  it  would  n't 
matter  particularly.  You  must  see  all  that  over 
there  for  yourself.  If  you  should  tell  me  not  to 
speak  to  your  father,  I  wouldn't;  I  would  wait. 
But  I  like  better  to  ask  your  leave  to  speak  to  him 
than  to  ask  his  to  speak  to  you." 

His  voice  had  sunk  almost  to  a  whisper ;  but, 
though  it  trembled,  his  emotion  gave  it  peculiar  in- 
tensity. He  had  the  same  attitude,  his  thumbs  in 
his  trousers,  his  attentive  head,  his  smile,  which  was 


LADY  BARBERINA.  167 

a  matter  of  course;  no  one  would  have  imagined 
what  he  was  saying.  She  had  listened  without  mov- 
ing, and  at  the  end  she  raised  her  eyes.  They  rested 
on  his  a  moment,  and  he  remembered,  a  good  while 
later,  the  look  which  passed  her  lids. 

"You  may  say  anything  that  you  please  to  my 
father,  but  I  don't  wish  to  hear  any  more.  You  have 
said  too  much,  considering  how  little  idea  you  have 
given  me  before." 

"  I  was  watching  you,"  said  Jackson  Lemon. 

Lady  Barberina  held  her  head  higher,  looking 
straight  at  him.  Then,  quite  seriously,  "  I  don't  like 
to  be  watched,"  she  remarked. 

"  You  shouldn't  be  so  beautiful,  then.  Won't  you 
give  me  a  word  of  hope  ? "  he  added. 

"I  have  never  supposed  I  should  marry  a  for- 
eigner," said  Lady  Barberiua. 

"  Do  you  call  me  a  foreigner  ?  " 

"I  think  your  ideas  are  very  different,  and  your 
country  is  different ;  you  have  told  me  so  yourself." 

"  I  should  like  to  show  it  to  you ;  I  would  make 
you  like  it." 

"  I  am  not  sure  what  you  would  make  me  do,"  said 
Lady  Barberina,  very  honestly. 

"Nothing  that  you  don't  want." 

"I  am  sure  you  would  try,"  she  declared,  with 
a  smile. 

"Well,"  said  Jackson  Lemon,  "after  all,  I  am 
trying  now." 

To  this  she  simply  replied  she  must  go  to  her 


168  LADY  BARBERINA. 

mother,  and  he  was  obliged  to  lead  her  out  of  the 
conservatory.  Lady  Canterville  was  not  immediately 
found,  so  that  he  had  time  to  murmur  as  they  went, 
"  Now  that  I  have  spoken,  I  am  very  happy." 

"  Perhaps  you  are  happy  too  soon,"  said  the  girl. 

"  Ah,  don't  say  that,  Lady  Barb." 

"  Of  course  I  must  think  of  it." 

"  Of  course  you  must ! "  said  Jackson  Lemon ;  "  I 
will  speak  to  your  father  to-morrow." 

"  I  can't  fancy  what  he  will  say." 

"  How  can  he  dislike  me  ? "  the  young  man  asked, 
in  a  tone  which  Lady  Beauchemin,  if  she  had  heard 
him,  would  have  been  forced  to  attribute  to  his  gen- 
eral affectation  of  the  jocose.  What  Lady  Beauche- 
min's  sister  thought  of  it  is  not  recorded  ;  but  there 
is  perhaps  a  clue  to  her  opinion  in  the  answer  she 
made  him  after  a  moment's  silence :  "  Eeally,  you 
know,  you  are  a  foreigner ! "  With  this  she  turned 
her  back  upon  him,  for  she  was  already  in  her 
mother's  hands.  Jackson  Lemon  said  a  few  words 
to  Lady  Canterville ;  they  were  chiefly  about  its 
being  very  hot.  She  gave  him  her  vague,  sweet 
attention,  as  if  he  were  saying  something  ingenious, 
of  which  she  missed  the  point.  He  could  see  that 
she  was  thinking  of  the  doings  of  her  daughter 
Agatha,  whose  attitude  toward  the  contemporary 
young  man  was  wanting  in  the  perception  of  differ- 
ences,—  a  madness  without  method;  she  was  evi- 
dently not  occupied  with  Lady  Barberina,  who  was 
more  to  be  trusted.  This  young  woman  never  met 


LADY  BARBERINA.  169 

her  suitor's  eyes  again ;  she  let  her  own  rest,  rather 
ostentatiously,  upon  other  objects.  At  last  he  was 
going  away  without  a  glance  from  her.  Lady  Can- 
terville  had  asked  him  to  come  to  lunch  on  the 
morrow,  and  he  had  said  he  would  do  so  if  she  would 
promise  him  he  should  see  his  lordship.  "I  can't 
pay  you  another  visit  until  I  have  had  some  talk 
with  him,"  he  said. 

"I  don't  see  why  not;  but  if  I  speak  to  him,  I 
dare  say  he  will  be  at  home,"  she  answered. 

"  It  will  be  worth  his  while ! " 

Jackson  Lemon  left  the  house  reflecting  that  as  he 
had  never  proposed  to  a  girl  before,  he  could  not  be 
expected  to  know  how  women  demean  themselves  in 
this  emergency.  He  had  heard,  indeed,  that  Lady 
Barb  had  had  no  end  of  offers ;  and  though  he  thought 
it  probable  that  the  number  was  exaggerated,  as  it 
always  is,  it  was  to  be  supposed  that  her  way  of 
appearing  suddenly  to  have  dropped  him  was  but 
the  usual  behavior  for  the  occasion. 


ni. 

AT  her  mother's  the  next  day  she  was  absent  from 
luncheon,  and  Lady  Canterville  mentioned  to  him  (he 
did  n't  ask)  that  she  had  gone  to  see  a  dear  old  great- 
aunt,  who  was  also  her  godmother,  and  who  lived  at 
Eoehampton.  Lord  Canterville  was  not  present,  but 
our  young  man  was  informed  by  his  hostess  that  he 


170  LADY  BARBERINA. 

had  promised  her  he  would  come  in  exactly  at  three 
o'clock.  Jackson  Lemon  lunched  with  Lady  Canter- 
ville  and  the  children,  who  appeared  in  force  at  this 
repast,  all  the  younger  girls  being  present,  and  two 
little  boys,  the  juniors  of  the  two  sons  who  were  in 
their  teens.  Jackson,  who  was  very  fond  of  children, 
and  thought  these  absolutely  the  finest  in  the  world, — 
magnificent  specimens  of  a  magnificent  brood,  such 
as  it  would  be  so  satisfactory  in  future  days  to  see 
about  his  own  knee,  —  Jackson  felt  that  he  was  being 
treated  as  one  of  the  family,  but  was  not  frightened 
by  what  he  supposed  the  privilege  to  imply.  Lady 
Canterville  betrayed  no  consciousness  whatever  of 
his  having  mooted  the  question  of  becoming  her  son- 
in-law,  and  he  believed  that  her  eldest  daughter  had 
not  told  her  of  their  talk  the  night  before.  This 
idea  gave  him  pleasure ;  he  liked  to  think  that  Lady 
Barb  was  judging  him  for  herself.  Perhaps,  indeed,  she 
was  taking  counsel  of  the  old  lady  at  Eoehampton : 
he  believed  that  he  was  the  sort  of  lover  of  whom  a 
godmother  would  approve.  Godmothers  in  his  mind 
were  mainly  associated  with  fairy-tales  (he  had  had 
no  baptismal  sponsors  of  his  own) ;  and  that  point  of 
view  would  be  favorable  to  a  young  man  with  a  great 
deal  of  gold  who  had  suddenly  arrived  from  a  foreign 
country,  —  an  apparition,  surely,  sufficiently  elfish. 
He  made  up  his  mind  that  he  should  like  Lady  Can- 
terville as  a  mother-in-law ;  she  would  be  too  well- 
bred  to  meddle.  Her  husband  came  in  at  three 
o'clock,  just  after  they  had  left  the  table,  and  said  to 


LADY  BARBERINA.  171 

Jackson  Lemon  that  it  was  very  good  in  him  to  have 
waited. 

"  I  have  n't  waited,"  Jackson  replied,  with  his  watch 
in  his  hand  ;  "  you  are  punctual  to  the  minute." 

I  know  not  how  Lord  Canterville  may  have  judged 
his  young  friend,  but  Jackson  Lemon  had  been  told 
more  than  once  in  his  life  that  he  was  a  very  good 
fellow,  but  rather  too  literal.  After  he  had  lighted  a 
cigarette  in  his  lordship's  "  den,"  a  large  brown  apart- 
ment on  the  ground-floor,  which  partook  at  once  of 
the  nature  of  an  office  and  of  that  of  a  harness-room 
(it  could  not  have  been  called  in  any  degree  a  library), 
he  went  straight  to  the  point  in  these  terms :  "  Well 
now,  Lord  Canterville,  I  feel  as  if  I  ought  to  let  you 
know  without  more  delay  that  I  am  in  love  with 
Lady  Barb,  and  that  I  should  like  to  marry  her."  So 
he  spoke,  puffing  his  cigarette,  with  his  conscious  but 
unextenuating  eye  fixed  on  his  host. 

No  man,  as  I  have  intimated,  bore  better  being 
looked  at  than  this  noble  personage;  he  seemed  to 
bloom  in  the  envious  warmth  of  human  contempla- 
tion, and  never  appeared  so  faultless  as  when  he  was 
most  exposed.  "  My  dear  fellow,  my  dear  fellow," 
he  murmured,  almost  in  disparagement,  stroking  his 
ambrosial  beard  from  before  the  empty  fireplace. 
He  lifted  his  eyebrows,  but  he  looked  perfectly  good- 
natured. 

"  Are  you  surprised,  sir  ? "  Jackson  Lemon  asked. 

"  Why,  I  suppose  any  one  is  surprised  at  a  man 
wanting  one  of  his  children.  He  sometimes  feels  the 


172  LADY  BARBERINA. 

weight  of  that  sort  of  thing  so  much,  you  know.  He 
wonders  what  the  devil  another  man  wants  of  them." 
And  Lord  Canterville  laughed  pleasantly  out  of  the 
copious  fringe  of  his  lips. 

"  I  only  want  one  of  them,"  said  Jackson  Lemon, 
laughing  too,  but  with  a  lighter  organ. 

"  Polygamy  would  be  rather  good  for  the  parents. 
However,  Lucy  told  me  the  other  night  that  she 
thought  you  were  looking  the  way  you  speak  of." 

"  Yes,  I  told  Lady  Beauchemin  that  I  love  Lady 
Barb,  and  she  seemed  to  think  it  was  natural." 

"  Oh,  yes,  I  suppose  there  's  no  want  of  nature  in 
it !  But,  my  dear  fellow,  I  really  don't  know  what 
to  say." 

"  Of  course  you  11  have  to  think  of  it."  Jackson 
Lemon,  in  saying  this,  felt  that  he  was  making  the 
most  liberal  concession  to  the  point  of  view  of  his 
interlocutor ;  being  perfectly  aware  that  in  his  own 
country  it  was  not  left  much  to  the  parents  to 
think  of. 

"  I  shall  have  to  talk  it  over  with  my  wife." 

"  Lady  Canterville  has  been  very  kind  to  me ;  I 
hope  she  will  continue." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  we  are  excellent  friends.  No 
one  could  appreciate  you  more  than  Lady  Canter- 
ville. Of  course  we  can  only  consider  such  a  question 
on  the  —  a  —  the  highest  grounds.  You  would  never 
want  to  marry  without  knowing,  as  it  were,  exactly 
what  you  are  doing.  I,  on  my  side,  naturally,  you 
know,  am  bound  to  do  the  best  I  can  for  my  own 


LADY  BARBERINA.  173 

child.  At  the  same  time,  of  course,  we  don't  want 
to  spend  our  time  in  —  a  —  walking  round  the  horse. 
We  want  to  keep  to  the  main  lines."  It  was  settled 
between  them  after  a  little  that  the  main  lines  were 
that  Jackson  Lemon  knew  to  a  certainty  the  state  of 
his  affections,  and  was  in  a  position  to  pretend  to  the 
hand  of  a  young  lady  who  Lord  Canterville  might 
say  —  of  course,  you  know,  without  swaggering  about 
it  —  had  a  right  to  expect  to  do  well,  as  the  women 
call  it. 

"  I  should  think  she  had,"  Jackson  Lemon  said ; 
"  she 's  a  beautiful  type." 

Lord  Canterville  stared  a  moment.  "She  is  a 
clever,  well-grown  girl,  and  she  takes  her  fences  like 
a  grasshopper.  Does  she  know  all  this,  by  the  way  ? " 
he  added. 

"  Oh  yes,  I  told  her  last  night." 

Again  Lord  Canterville  had  the  air,  unusual  with 
him,  of  returning  his  companion's  regard.  "  I  am  not 
sure  that  you  ought  to  have  done  that,  you  know." 

"  I  could  n't  have  spoken  to  you  first  —  I  could  n't," 
said  Jackson  Lemon.  "  I  meant  to ;  but  it  stuck  in 
my  crop." 

"  They  don't  in  your  country,  I  guess,"  his  lordship 
returned,  smiling. 

"  Well,  not  as  a  general  thing ;  however,  I  find  it 
very  pleasant  to  discuss  with  you  now."  And  in 
truth  it  was  very  pleasant.  Nothing  could  be  easier, 
friendlier,  more  informal,  than  Lord  Canterville's 
manner,  which  implied  all  sorts  of  equality,  especially 


174  LADY  BARBERINA. 

that  of  age  and  fortune,  and  made  Jackson  Lemon 
feel  at  the  end  of  three  minutes  almost  as  if  he  too 
were  a  beautifully  preserved  and  somewhat  strait- 
ened nobleman  of  sixty,  with  the  views  of  a  man  of 
the  world  about  his  own  marriage.  The  young  Amer- 
ican perceived  that  Lord  Canterville  waived  the  point 
of  his  having  spoken  first  to  the  girl  herself,  and  saw 
in  this  indulgence  a  just  concession  to  the  ardor  of 
young  affection.  For  Lord  Canterville  seemed  per- 
fectly to  appreciate  the  sentimental  side,  —  at  least 
so  far  as  it  was  embodied  in  his  visitor,  —  when  he 
said  without  deprecation:  "Did  she  give  you  any 
encouragement  ? " 

"  Well,  she  did  n't  box  my  ears.  She  told  me  that 
she  would  think  of  it,  but  that  I  must  speak  to  you. 
But  naturally  I  should  n't  have  said  what  I  did  to 
her  if  I  had  n't  made  up  my  mind  during  the  last  fort- 
night that  I  am  not  disagreeable  to  her." 

"  Ah,  my  dear  young  man,  women  are  odd  cattle  ! " 
Lord  Canterville  exclaimed,  rather  unexpectedly. 
"  But  of  course  you  know  all  that,"  he  added  in  an 
instant;  "you  take  the  general  risk." 

"  I  am  perfectly  willing  to  take  the  general  risk ; 
the  particular  risk  is  small." 

"Well,  upon  my  honor  I  don't  really  know  my 
girls.  You  see  a  man's  time,  in  England,  is  tremen- 
dously taken  up;  but  I  dare  say  it's  the  same  in 
your  country.  Their  mother  knows  them  —  I  think 
I  had  better  send  for  their  mother.  If  you  don't 
mind  I  '11  just  suggest  that  she  join  us  here." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  175 

"  I  'm  rather  afraid  of  you  both  together,  but  if  it 
will  settle  it  any  quicker  — "  said  Jackson  Lenion. 
Lord  Canterville  rang  the  bell,  and,  when  a  servant 
appeared,  despatched  him  with  a  message  to  her  lady- 
ship. While  they  were  waiting,  the  young  man 
remembered  that  it  was  in  his  power  to  give  a  more 
definite  account  of  his  pecuniary  basis.  He  had 
simply  said  before  that  he  was  abundantly  able  to 
marry ;  he  shrank  from  putting  himself  forward  as  a 
billionnaire.  He  had  a  fine  taste,  and  he  wished  to 
appeal  to  Lord  Canterville  primarily  as  a  gentleman. 
But  now  that  he  had  to  make  a  double  impression, 
he  bethought  himself  of  his  millions,  for  millions  were 
always  impressive.  "  I  think  it  only  fair  to  let  you 
know  that  my  fortune  is  really  very  considerable,"  he 
remarked. 

"  Yes,  I  dare  say  you  are  beastly  rich,"  said  Lord 
Canterville. 

"  I  have  about  seven  millions." 

"  Seven  millions  ?  " 

"  I  count  in  dollars ;  upwards  of  a  million  and  a 
half  sterling." 

Lord  Canterville  looked  at  him  from  head  to  foot, 
with  an  air  of  cheerful  resignation  to  a  form  of  gross- 
ness  which  threatened  to  become  common.  Then  he 
said,  with  a  touch  of  that  inconsequence  of  which  he 
had  already  given  a  glimpse  :  "  What  the  deuce,  then, 
possessed  you  to  turn  doctor  ? " 

Jackson  Lemon  colored  a  little,  hesitated,  and  then 
said  quickly :  "  Because  I  had  the  talent  for  it." 


176  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"Of  course,  I  don't  for  a  moment  doubt  of  your 
ability ;  but  don't  you  find  it  rather  a  bore  ? " 

"  I  don't  practise  much.  I  am  rather  ashamed  to 
say  that." 

"  Ah,  well,  of  course,  in  your  country  it 's  different. 
I  dare  say  you  Ve  got  a  door-plate,  eh  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,  and  a  tin  sign  tied  to  the  balcony ! "  said 
Jackson  Lemon,  smiling. 

"  What  did  your  father  say  to  it  ? " 

"  To  my  going  into  medicine  ?  He  said  he  would 
be  hanged  if  he  'd  take  any  of  my  doses.  He  did  n't 
think  I  should  succeed ;  he  wanted  me  to  go  into  the 
house." 

"Into  the  House  —  a  — "  said  Lord  Canterville, 
hesitating  a  little.  "Into  your  Congress  —  yes,  ex- 
actly." 

"  Ah,  no,  not  so  bad  as  that.  Into  the  store,"  Jack- 
son Lemon  replied,  in  the  candid  tone  in  which  he 
expressed  himself  when,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  he 
wished  to  be  perfectly  national. 

Lord  Canterville  stared,  not  venturing,  even  for  the 
moment,  to  hazard  an  interpretation ;  and  before  a 
solution  had  presented  itself,  Lady  Canterville  came 
into  the  room. 

"  My  dear,  I  thought  we  had  better  see  you.  Do 
you  know  he  wants  to  marry  our  second  girl  ?  "  It 
was  in  these  simple  terms  that  her  husband  acquainted 
her  with  the  question. 

Lady  Canterville  expressed  neither  surprise  nor 
elation;  she  simply  stood  there,  smiling,  with  her 


LADY  BARBERINA.  177 

head  a  little  inclined  to  the  side,  with  all  her  custo- 
mary graciousness.  Her  charming  eyes  rested  on 
those  of  Jackson  Lemon ;  and  though  they  seemed  to 
show  that  she  had  to  think  a  little  of  so  serious  a 
proposition,  his  own  discovered  in  them  none  of  the 
coldness  of  calculation.  "  Are  you  talking  about  Bar- 
berina  ?  "  she  asked  in  a  moment,  as  if  her  thoughts 
had  been  far  away. 

Of  course  they  were  talking  about  Barberina,  and 
Jackson  Lemon  repeated  to  her  ladyship  what  he  had 
said  to  the  girl's  father.  He  had  thought  it  all  over, 
and  his  mind  was  quite  made  up.  Moreover,  he  had 
spoken  to  Lady  Barb. 

"Did  she  tell  you  that,  my  dear?"  asked  Lord 
Canterville,  while  he  lighted  another  cigar. 

She  gave  no  heed  to  this  inquiry,  which  had  been 
vague  and  accidental  on  his  lordship's  part,  but  sim- 
ply said  to  Jackson  Lemon  that  the  thing  was  very 
serious,  and  that  they  had  better  sit  down  for  a  mo- 
ment. In  an  instant  he  was  near  her  on  the  sofa  on 
which  she  had  placed  herself,  still  smiling  and  looking 
up  at  her  husband  with  an  air  of  general  meditation, 
in  which  a  sweet  compassion  for  every  one  concerned 
was  apparent. 

"Barberina  has  told  me  nothing,"  she  said  after 
a  little. 

"  That  proves  she  cares  for  me  J "  Jackson  Lemon 
exclaimed,  eagerly. 

Lady  Canterville  looked  as  if  she  thought  this  almost 
too  ingenious,  almost  professional ;  but  her  husband 

12 


178  LADY  BARBERINA. 

said  cheerfully,  jovially :  "  Ah  well,  if  she  cares  for 
you,  I  don't  object." 

This  was  a  little  ambiguous;  but  before  Jackson 
Lemon  had  time  to  look  into  it,  Lady  Canterville 
asked,  gently:  "Should  you  expect  her  to  live  in 
America  ?  " 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  that 's  my  home,  you  know." 

"Shouldn't  you  be  living  sometimes  in  England?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  we  11  come  over  and  see  you."  The  young 
man  was  in  love,  he  wanted  to  marry,  he  wanted  to 
be  genial,  and  to  commend  himself  to  the  parents  of 
Lady  Barb ;  at  the  same  time  it  was  in  his  nature 
not  to  accept  conditions,  save  in  so  far  as  they  exactly 
suited  him,  to  tie  himself,  or,  as  they  said  in  New 
York,  to  give  himself  away.  In  any  transaction  he 
preferred  his  own  terms  to  those  of  any  one  else. 
Therefore,  the  moment  Lady  Canterville  gave  signs 
of  wishing  to  extract  a  promise,  he  was  on  his  guard. 

"She'll  find  it  very  different;  perhaps  she  won't 
like  it,"  her  ladyship  suggested. 

"If  she  likes  me,  she'll  like  my  country,"  said  Jack- 
son Lernon,  with  decision. 

"  He  tells  me  he  has  got  a  plate  on  his  door,"  Lord 
Canterville  remarked,  humorously. 

"  We  must  talk  to  her,  of  course ;  we  must  under- 
stand how  she  feels,"  said  his  wife,  looking  more 
serious  than  she  had  done  as  yet. 

"Please  don't  discourage  her,  Lady  Canterville," 
the  young  man  begged;  "and  give  me  a  chance  to 
talk  to  her  a  little  more  myself.  You  have  n't  given 
me  much  chance,  you  know." 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  179 

"We  don't  offer  our  daughters  to  people,  Mr. 
Lemon."  Lady  Canterville  was  always  gentle,  but 
now  she  was  a  little  majestic. 

"  She  is  n't  like  some  women  in  London,  you  know," 
said  Jackson  Lemon's  host,  who  seemed  to  remember 
that  to  a  discussion  of  such  importance  he  ought 
from  time  to  time  to  contribute  a  word  of  wisdom. 
And  Jackson  Lemon,  certainly,  if  the  idea  had  been 
presented  to  him,  would  have  said  that,  No,  decidedly, 
Lady  Barberina  had  not  been  thrown  at  him. 

"Of  course  not,"  he  declared,  in  answer  to  her 
mother's  remark.  "  But,  you  know,  you  must  n't 
refuse  them  too  much,  either ;  you  must  n't  make  a 
poor  fellow  wait  too  long.  I  admire  her,  I  love  her, 
more  than  I  can  say ;  I  give  you  my  word  of  honor 
for  that." 

"  He  seems  to  think  that  settles  it,"  said  Lord 
Canterville,  smiling  down  at  the  young  American, 
very  pleasantly,  from  his  place  before  the  cold  chim- 
ney-piece. 

"Of  course  that's  what  we  desire,  Phillip,"  her 
ladyship  returned,  very  nobly. 

"  Lady  Barb  believes  it ;  I  am  sure  she  does ! " 
Jackson  Lemon  exclaimed.  "  Why  should  I  pretend 
to  be  in  love  with  her  if  I  am  not  ? " 

Lady  Canterville  received  this  inquiry  in  silence, 
and  her  husband,  with  just  the  least  air  in  the  world 
of  repressed  impatience,  began  to  walk  up  and  down 
the  room.  He  was  a  man  of  many  engagements,  and 
he  had  been  closeted  for  more  than  a  quarter  of  an 


180  LADY  BARBERINA. 

hour  with  the  young  American  doctor.  "Do  you 
imagine  you  should  come  often  to  England  ? "  Lady 
Canterville  demanded,  with  a  certain  abruptness, 
returning  to  that  important  point. 

"  I  'm  afraid  I  can't  tell  you  that ;  of  course  we 
shall  do  whatever  seems  best."  He  was  prepared  to 
suppose  they  should  cross  the  Atlantic  every  summer : 
that  prospect  was  by  no  means  displeasing  to  him; 
but  he  was  not  prepared  to  give  any  such  pledge  to 
Lady  Canterville,  especially  as  he  did  not  believe  it 
would  really  be  necessary.  It  was  in  his  mind,  not 
as  an  overt  pretension,  but  as  a  tacit  implication  that 
he  should  treat  with  Barberina's  parents  on  a  footing 
of  perfect  equality;  and  there  would  somehow  be 
nothing  equal  if  he  should  begin  to  enter  into  engage- 
ments which  did  n't  belong  to  the  essence  of  the 
matter.  They  were  to  give  their  daughter,  and  he 
was  to  take  her :  in  this  arrangement  there  would  be 
as  much  on  one  side  as  on  the  other.  But  beyond 
this  he  had  nothing  to  ask  of  them ;  there  was  noth- 
ing he  wished  them  to  promise,  and  his  own  pledges, 
therefore,  would  have  no  equivalent.  Whenever  his 
wife  should  wish  it,  she  should  come  over  and  see  her 
people.  Her  home  was  to  be  in  New  York ;  but  he 
was  tacitly  conscious  that  on  the  question  of  absences 
he  should  be  very  liberal.  Nevertheless,  there  was 
something  in  the  very  grain  of  his  character  which 
forbade  that  he  should  commit  himself  at  present  in 
respect  to  times  and  dates. 

Lady  Canterville  looked  at  her  husband,  but  her 


LADY  BARBERINA.  181 

husband  was  not  attentive ;  he  was  taking  a  peep  at 
his  watch.  In  a  moment,  however,  he  threw  out  a 
remark  to  the  effect  that  he  thought  it  a  capital 
thing  that  the  two  countries  should  become  more 
united,  and  there  was  nothing  that  would  bring  it 
about  better  than  a  few  of  the  best  people  on  both 
sides  pairing  off  together.  The  English,  indeed,  had 
begun  it ;  a  lot  of  fellows  had  brought  over  a  lot  of 
pretty  girls,  and  it  was  quite  fair  play  that  the 
Americans  should  take  their  pick.  They  were  all 
one  race,  after  all ;  and  why  should  n't  they  make  one 
society,  —  the  best  on  both  sides,  of  course  ?  Jack- 
son Lemon  smiled  as  he  recognized  Lady  Marma- 
duke's  philosophy,  and  he  was  pleased  to  think  that 
Lady  Beauchemin  had  some  influence  with  her  father ; 
for  he  was  sure  the  old  gentleman  (as  he  mentally 
designated  his  host)  had  got  all  this  from  her,  though 
he  expressed  himself  less  happily  than  the  cleverest 
of  his  daughters.  Our  hero  had  no  objection  to  make 
to  it,  especially  if  there  was  anything  in  it  that  would 
really  help  his  case.  But  it  was  not  in  the  least  on 
these  high  grounds  that  he  had  sought  the  hand  of 
Lady  Barb.  He  wanted  her  not  in  order  that  her 
people  and  his  (the  best  on  both  sides !)  should  make 
one  society ;  he  wanted  her  simply  because  he  wanted 
her.  Lady  Canterville  smiled;  but  she  seemed  to 
have  another  thought. 

"  I  quite  appreciate  what  my  husband  says ;  but  I 
don't  see  why  poor  Barb  should  be  the  one  to  begin." 

"  I  dare  say  she  '11  like  it,"  said  Lord  Canterville, 


182  LADY  BARBERINA. 

as  if  he  were  attempting  a  short  cut.  "  They  say  you 
spoil  your  women  awfully." 

"  She 's  not  one  of  their  women  yet,"  her  ladyship 
remarked,  in  the  sweetest  tone  in  the  world;  and 
then  she  added,  without  Jackson  Lemon's  knowing 
exactly  what  she  meant,  "  It  seems  so  strange." 

He  was  a  little  irritated ;  and  perhaps  these  simple 
words  added  to  the  feeling.  There  had  been  no  posi- 
tive opposition  to  his  suit,  and  Lord  and  Lady  Can- 
terville  were  most  kind ;  but  he  felt  that  they  held 
back  a  little ;  and  though  he  had  not  expected  them 
to  throw  themselves  on  his  neck,  he  was  rather  dis- 
appointed ;  his  pride  was  touched.  Why  should  they 
hesitate  ?  He  considered  himself  such  a  good  parti. 
It  was  not  so  much  the  old  gentleman,  it  was  Lady 
Canterville.  As  he  saw  the  old  gentleman  look, 
covertly,  a  second  time  at  his  watch,  he  could  have 
believed  he  would  have  been  glad  to  settle  the  matter 
on  the  spot.  Lady  Canterville  seemed  to  wish  her 
daughter's  lover  to  come  forward  more,  to  give  cer- 
tain assurances  and  guaranties.  He  felt  that  he  was 
ready  to  say  or  do  anything  that  was  a  matter  of 
proper  form ;  but  he  could  n't  take  the  tone  of  trying 
to  purchase  her  ladyship's  consent,  penetrated  as  he 
was  with  the  conviction  that  such  a  man  as  he  could 
be  trusted  to  care  for  his  wife  rather  more  than  an 
impecunious  British  peer  and  his  wife  could  be  sup- 
posed (with  the  lights  he  had  acquired  in  English 
society)  to  care  even  for  the  handsomest  of  a  dozen 
children.  It  was  a  mistake  on  Lady  Canterville's 


LADY  BARBERINA.  183 

part  not  to  recognize  that.  He  humored  her  mistake 
to  the  extent  of  saying,  just  a  little  dryly,  "  My  wife 
shall  certainly  have  everything  she  wants/' 

"  He  tells  me  he  is  disgustingly  rich,"  Lord  Canter- 
ville  added,  pausing  before  their  companion  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets. 

"  I  am  glad  to  hear  it ;  but  it  is  n't  so  much  that," 
she  answered,  sinking  back  a  little  on  her  sofa.  If  it 
was  not  that,  she  did  not  say  what  it  was,  though  she 
had  looked  for  a  moment  as  if  she  were  going  to.  She 
only  raised  her  eyes  to  her  husband's  face,  as  if  to 
ask  for  inspiration.  I  know  not  whether  she  found 
it,  but  in  a  moment  she  said  to  Jackson  Lemon, 
seeming  to  imply  that  it  was  quite  another  point: 
"  Do  you  expect  to  continue  your  profession  ? " 

He  had  no  such  intention,  so  far  as  his  profession 
meant  getting  up  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  to 
assuage  the  ills  of  humanity ;  but  here,  as  before,  the 
touch  of  such  a  question  instantly  stiffened  him. 
"  Oh,  my  profession !  I  am  rather  ashamed  of  that 
matter.  I  have  neglected  my  work  so  much,  I  don't 
know  what  I  shall  be  able  to  do,  once  I  am  really 
settled  at  home." 

Lady  Canterville  received  these  remarks  in  silence ; 
fixing  her  eyes  again  upon  her  husband's  face.  But 
this  nobleman  was  really  not  helpful ;  still  with  his 
hands  in  his  pockets,  save  when  he  needed  to  remove 
his  cigar  from  his  lips,  he  went  and  looked  out  of  the 
window.  "Of  course  we  know  you  don't  practise, 
and  when  you  're  a  married  man  you  will  have  less 


184  LADY  BARBERINA. 

time  even  than  now.     But  I  should  really  like  to 
know  if  they  call  you  Doctor  over  there." 

"  Oh,  yes,  universally.  We  are  nearly  as  fond  of 
titles  as  your  people." 

"I  don't  call  that  a  title."  . 

"It's  not  so  good  as  duke  or  marquis,  I  admit; 
but  we  have  to  take  what  we  have  got." 

"  Oh,  bother,  what  does  it  signify  ? "  Lord  Canter- 
ville  demanded,  from  his  place  at  the  window.  "I 
used  to  have  a  horse  named  Doctor,  and  a  devilish 
good  one  too." 

"  You  may  call  me  bishop,  if  you  like,"  said  Jack- 
son Lemon,  laughing. 

Lady  Canterville  looked  grave,  as  if  she  did  not  en- 
joy this  pleasantry.  "I  don't  care  for  any  titles,"  she 
observed;  "I  don't  see  why  a  gentleman  shouldn't 
be  called  Mr." 

It  suddenly  appeared  to  Jackson  Lemon  that  there 
was  something  helpless,  confused,  and  even  slightly 
comical,  in  the  position  of  this  noble  and  amiable 
lady.  The  impression  made  him  feel  kindly;  he  too, 
like  Lord  Canterville,  had  begun  to  long  for  a  short 
cut.  He  relaxed  a  moment,  and  leaning  toward  his 
hostess,  with  a  smile  and  his  hands  on  his  little 
knees,  he  said,  softly,  "  It  seems  to  me  a  question  of 
no  importance ;  all  I  desire  is  that  you  should  call 
me  your  son-in-law." 

Lady  Canterville  gave  him  her  hand,  and  he  pressed 
it  almost  affectionately.  Then  she  got  up,  remarking 
that  before  anything  was  decided  she  must  see  her 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  185 

daughter,  she  must  learn  from  her  own  lips  the  state 
of  her  feelings.  "  I  don't  like  at  all  her  not  having 
spoken  to  me  already,"  she  added. 

"  Where  has  she  gone  —  to  Eoehampton  ?  I  dare 
say  she  has  told  it  all  to  her  godmother,"  said  Lord 
Canterville. 

"  She  won't  have  much  to  tell,  poor  girl ! "  Jackson 
Lemon  exclaimed.  "  I  must  really  insist  upon  seeing 
with  more  freedom  the  person  I  wish  to  marry." 

"  You  shall  have  all  the  freedom  you  want,  in  two 
or  three  days,"  said  Lady  Canterville.  She  smiled 
with  all  her  sweetness;  she  appeared  to  have  accepted 
him,  and  yet  still  to  be  making  tacit  assumptions. 
"  Are  there  not  certain  things  to  be  talked  of  first  ? " 

"  Certain  things,  dear  lady  ? " 

Lady  Canterville  looked  at  her  husband,  and  though 
he  was  still  at  his  window,  this  time  he  felt  it  in  her 
silence,  and  had  to  come  away  and  speak.  "  Oh,  she 
means  settlements,  and  that  kind  of  thing."  This 
was  an  allusion  which  came  with  a  much  better  grace 
from  him. 

Jackson  Lemon  looked  from  one  of  his  companions 
to  the  other;  he  colored  a  little,  and  gave  a  smile 
that  was  perhaps  a  trifle  fixed.  "  Settlements  ?  We 
don't  make  them  in  the  United  States.  You  may  be 
sure  I  shall  make  a  proper  provision  for  my  wife." 

"My  dear  fellow,  over  here  —  in  our  class,  you 
know,  it 's  the  custom,"  said  Lord  Canterville,  with  a 
richer  brightness  in  his  face  at  the  thought  that  the 
discussion  was  over. 


186  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  I  have  my  own  ideas,"  Jackson  answered,  smiling. 

"  It  seems  to  me  it 's  a  question  for  the  solicitors  to 
discuss,"  Lady  Canterville  suggested. 

"  They  may  discuss  it  as  much  as  they  please,"  said 
Jackson  Lemon,  with  a  laugh.  He  thought  he  saw 
his  solicitors  discussing  it !  He  had  indeed  his  own 
ideas.  He  opened  the  door  for  Lady  Canterville,  and 
the  three  passed  out  of  the  room  together,  walking 
into  the  hall  in  a  silence  in  which  there  was  just  a 
tinge  of  awkwardness.  A  note  had  been  struck  which 
grated  and  scratched  a  little.  A  pair  of  brilliant 
footmen,  at  their  approach,  rose  from  a  bench  to  a 
great  altitude,  and  stood  there  like  sentinels  present- 
ing arms.  Jackson  Lemon  stopped,  looking  for  a 
moment  into  the  interior  of  his  hat,  which  he  had  in 
his  hand.  Then,  raising  his  keen  eyes,  he  fixed  them 
a  moment  on  those  of  Lady  Canterville,  addressing 
her,  instinctively,  rather  than  her  husband.  "  I  guess 
you  and  Lord  Canterville  had  better  leave  it  to  me  ! " 

"We  have  our  traditions,  Mr.  Lemon,"  said  her 
ladyship,  with  nobleness.  "I  imagine  you  don't 
know "  she  murmured. 

Lord  Canterville  laid  his  hand  on  the  young  man's 
shoulder.  "My  dear  boy,  those  fellows  will  settle 
it  in  three  minutes." 

"Very  likely  they  will!"  said  Jackson  Lemon. 
Then  he  asked  of  Lady  Canterville  when  he  might 
see  Lady  Barb. 

She  hesitated  a  moment,  in  her  gracious  way.  "  I 
will  write  you  a  note." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  187 

One  of  the  tall  footmen,  at  the  end  of  the  impres- 
sive vista,  had  opened  wide  the  portals,  as  if  even  he 
were  aware  of  the  dignity  to  which  the  little  visi- 
tor had  virtually  been  raised.  But  Jackson  lingered 
a  moment ;  he  was  visibly  unsatisfied,  though  appar- 
ently so  little  unconscious  that  he  was  unsatisfying. 
"  I  don't  think  you  understand  me." 

"Your  ideas  are  certainly  different,"  said  Lady 
Canterville. 

"  If  the  girl  understands  you,  that 's  enough  ! "  Lord 
Canterville  exclaimed  in  a  jovial,  detached,  irrelevant 
way. 

"  May  not  she  write  to  me  ? "  Jackson  asked  of  her 
mother.  "  I  certainly  must  write  to  her,  you  know,  if 
you  won't  let  me  see  her." 

"  Oh,  yes,  you  may  write  to  her,  Mr.  Lemon." 

There  was  a  point  for  a  moment  in  the  look  that 
he  gave  Lady  Canterville,  while  he  said  to  himself 
that  if  it  were  necessary  he  would  transmit  his  notes 
through  the  old  lady  at  Eoehampton.  "All  right, 
good  by ;  you  know  what  I  want,  at  any  rate."  Then, 
as  he  was  going,  he  turned  and  added  :  "  You  need  n't 
be  afraid  that  I  won't  bring  her  over  in  the  hot 
weather ! " 

"  In  the  hot  weather  ? "  Lady  Canterville  mur- 
mured, with  vague  visions  of  the  torrid  zone,  while 
the  young  American  quitted  the  house  with  the  sense 
that  he  had  made  great  concessions. 

His  host  and  hostess  passed  into  a  small  morning- 
room,  and  (Lord  Canterville  having  taken  up  his  hat 


188  LADY  BARBERINA. 

and  stick  to  go  out  again)  stood  there  a  moment,  face 
to  face. 

"It's clear  enough  he  wants  her,"  said  his  lordship, 
in  a  summary  manner. 

"  There  's  something  so  odd  about  him,"  Lady  Can- 
terville  answered.  "Fancy  his  speaking  so  about 
settlements ! " 

"You  had  better  give  him  his  head;  he  '11  go 
much  quieter." 

"  He  's  so  obstinate  —  very  obstinate ;  it 's  easy  to 
see  that.  And  he  seems  to  think  a  girl  in  your 
daughter's  position  can  be  married  from  one  day  to 
the  other  —  with  a  ring  and  a  new  frock  —  like  a 
housemaid." 

"  Well,  of  course,  over  there,  that 's  the  kind  of 
thing.  But  he  seems  really  to  have  a  most  extraor- 
dinary fortune  ;  and  every  one  does  say  their  women 
have  carte  blanche" 

"  Carte  blanche  is  not  what  Barb  wishes  ;  she  wishes 
a  settlement.  She  wants  a  definite  income ;  she  wants 
to  be  safe." 

Lord  Canterville  stared  a  moment.     "  Has  she  told 

you  so?    I  thought  you  said ."     And  then  he 

stopped.     "  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he  added. 

Lady  Canterville  gave  no  explanation  of  her  incon- 
sistency. She  went  on  to  remark  that  American  for- 
tunes were  notoriously  insecure  ;  one  heard  of  nothing 
else ;  they  melted  away  like  smoke.  It  was  their 
duty  to  their  child  to  demand  that  something  should 
be  fixed. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  189 

"  He  lias  a  million  and  a  half  sterling,"  said  Lord 
Canterville.  "  I  can't  make  out  what  he  does  with 
it." 

"  She  ought  to  have  something  very  handsome,"  his 
wife  remarked. 

"  Well,  my  dear,  you  must  settle  it :  you  must  con- 
sider it ;  you  must  send  for  Hilary.  Only  take  care 
you  don't  put  him  off;  it  may  be  a  very  good  open- 
ing, you  know.  There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  done  out 
there ;  I  believe  in  all  that,"  Lord  Canterville  went 
on,  in  the  tone  of  a  conscientious  parent. 

"  There  is  no  doubt  that  he  is  a  doctor  —  in  those 
places,"  said  Lady  Canterville,  musingly. 

"  He  may  be  a  pedler  for  all  I  care." 

"  If  they  should  go  out,  I  think  Agatha  might  go 
with  them,"  her  ladyship  continued,  in  the  same  tone, 
a  little  disconnectedly. 

"  You  may  send  them  all  out  if  you  like.  Good 
by  ! "  And  Lord  Canterville  kissed  his  wife. 

But  she  detained  him  a  moment,  with  her  hand  on 
his  arm.  "Don't  you  think  he  is  very  much  in 
love?" 

"  Oh,  yes,  he 's  very  bad ;  but  he 's  a  clever  little 
beggar." 

"  She  likes  him  very  much,"  Lady  Canterville  an- 
nounced, rather  formally,  as  they  separated. 


190  LADY  BARBERINA. 


PAET  SECOND. 

IV. 

JACKSON  LEMON  had  said  to  Sidney  Feeder  in  the 
Park  that  he  would  call  on  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Freer  ;  but 
three  weeks  elapsed  before  he  knocked  at  their  door 
in  Jermyn  Street.     In  the  meantime   he  had  met 
them  at  dinner,  and  Mrs.  Freer  had  told  him  that  she 
hoped  very  much  he  would  find  time  to  come  and  see 
her.     She  had  not  reproached  him,  nor  shaken  her 
finger  at  him;  and  her  clemency,  which  was  calcu- 
lated, and  very  characteristic  of  her,  touched  him  so 
much   (for  he   was   in   fault;  she  was   one  of  his 
mother's  oldest  and  best  friends),  that  he  very  soon 
presented  himself.     It  was  on  a  fine  Sunday  after- 
noon, rather  late,  and  the  region  of  Jermyn  Street 
looked  forsaken  and  inanimate ;  the  native  dulness  of 
the  landscape  appeared  in  all  its  purity.     Mrs.  Freer, 
however,  was  at  home,  resting  on  a  lodging-house 
sofa  —  an  angular  couch,  draped  in  faded  chintz  — 
before  she  went  to  dress  for  dinner.     She  made  the 
young  man  very  welcome ;  she  told  him   she  had 
been  thinking  of  him  a  great  deal ;  she  had  wished 
to  have  a  chance  to  talk  with  him.     He  immediately 
perceived  what  she  had  in  mind,  and  then  he  remem- 
bered that  Sidney  Feeder  had  told  him  what  it  was 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  191 

that  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Freer  took  upon  themselves  to  say. 
This  had  provoked  him  at  the  time,  but  he  had  for- 
gotten it  afterward ;  partly  because  he  became  aware, 
that  same  evening,  that  he  did  wish  to  marry  the 
rt  young  marchioness,"  and  partly  because  since  then 
he  had  had  much  greater  annoyances.  Yes,  the  poor 
young  man,  so  conscious  of  liberal  intentions,  of  a 
large  way  of  looking  at  the  future,  had  had  much  to 
irritate  and  disgust  him.  He  had  seen  the  mistress 
of  his  affections  but  three  or  four  times,  and  he  had 
received  letters  from  Mr.  Hilary,  Lord  Canterville's 
solicitor,  asking  him,  in  terms  the  most  obsequious,  it 
is  true,  to  designate  some  gentleman  of  the  law  with 
whom  the  preliminaries  of  his  marriage  to  Lady  Bar- 
berina  Clement  might  be  arranged.  He  had  given 
Mr.  Hilary  the  name  of  such  a  functionary,  but  he 
had  written  by  the  same  post  to  his  own  solicitor 
(for  whose  services  in  other  matters  he  had  had  much 
occasion,  Jackson  Lemon  being  distinctly  conten- 
tious), instructing  him  that  he  was  at  liberty  to  meet 
Mr.  Hilary,  but  not  at  liberty  to  entertain  any  pro- 
posals as  to  this  odious  English  idea  of  a  settlement. 
If  marrying  Jackson  Lemon  were  not  settlement 
enough,  then  Lord  and  Lady  Canterville  had  better 
alter  their  point  of  view.  It  was  quite  out  of  the 
question  that  he  should  alter  his.  It  would  perhaps 
be  difficult  to  explain  the  strong  aversion  that  he 
entertained  to  the  introduction  into  his  prospective 
union  of  this  harsh  diplomatic  element;  it  was  as 
if  they  mistrusted  him,  suspected  him ;  as  if  his 


192  LADY  BARBERINA. 

hands  were  to  be  tied,  so  that  he  could  not  handle 
his  own  fortune  as  he  thought  best.  It  was  not  the 
idea  of  parting  with  his  money  that  displeased  him, 
for  he  flattered  himself  that  he  had  plans  of  expendi- 
ture for  his  wife  beyond  even  the  imagination  of  her 
distinguished  parents.  It  struck  him  even  that  they 
were  fools  not  to  have  perceived  that  they  should 
make  a  much  better  thing  of  it  by  leaving  him  per- 
fectly free.  This  intervention  of  the  solicitor  was 
a  nasty  little  English  tradition — totally  at  variance 
with  the  large  spirit  of  American  habits  —  to  which 
he  would  not  submit.  It  was  not  his  way  to  submit 
when  he  disapproved :  why  should  he  change  his  way 
on  this  occasion,  when  the  matter  lay  so  near  him  ? 
These  reflections,  and  a  hundred  more,  had  flowed 
freely  through  his  mind  for  several  days  before  he 
called  in  Jermyn  Street,  and  they  had  engendered  a 
lively  indignation  and  a  really  bitter  sense  of  wrong. 
As  may  be  imagined,  they  had  infused  a  certain  awk- 
wardness into  his  relations  with  the  house  of  Canter- 
ville,  and  it  may  be  said  of  these  relations  that  they 
were  for  the  moment  virtually  suspended.  His  first 
interview  with  Lady  Barb,  after  his  conference  with 
the  old  couple,  as  he  called  her  august  elders,  had 
been  as  tender  as  he  could  have  desired.  Lady  Can- 
terville,  at  the  end  of  three  days,  had  sent  him  an 
invitation  —  five  words  on  a  card  —  asking  him  to 
dine  with  them  to-morrow,  quite  en  famille.  This 
had  been  the  only  formal  intimation  that  his  engage- 
ment to  Lady  Barb  was  recognized ;  for  even  at  the 


LADY  BARBERINA.  193 

family  banquet,  which  included  half  a  dozen  outsid- 
ers, there  had  been  no  allusion  on  the  part  either  of 
his  host  or  his  hostess  to  the  subject  of  their  conver- 
sation in  Lord  Canterville's  den.  The  only  allusion 
was  a  wandering  ray,  once  or  twice,  in  Lady  Barber- 
ina's  eyes.  When,  however,  after  dinner,  she  strolled 
away  with  him  into  the  music-room,  which  was  lighted 
and  empty,  to  play  for  him  something  out  of  Carmen, 
of  which  he  had  spoken  at  table,  and  when  the  young 
couple  were  allowed  to  enjoy  for  upwards  of  an  hour, 
unmolested,  the  comparative  privacy  of  this  rich 
apartment,  he  felt  that  Lady  Canterville  definitely 
counted  upon  him.  She  did  n't  believe  in  any  seri- 
ous difficulties.  Neither  did  he,  then ;  and  that  was 
why  it  was  a  nuisance  there  should  be  a  vain  ap- 
pearance of  them.  The  arrangements,  he  supposed 
Lady  Canterville  would  have  said,  were  pending,  and 
indeed  they  were ;  for  he  had  already  given  orders  in 
Bond  Street  for  the  setting  of  an  extraordinary  num- 
ber of  diamonds.  Lady  Barb,  at  any  rate,  during 
that  hour  he  spent  with  her,  had  had  nothing  to  say 
about  arrangements ;  and  it  had  been  an  hour  of  pure 
satisfaction.  She  had  seated  herself  at  the  piano  and 
had  played  perpetually,  in  a  soft,  incoherent  manner, 
while  he  leaned  over  the  instrument,  very  close  to 
her,  and  said  everything  that  came  into  his  head. 
She  was  very  bright  and  serene,  and  she  looked  at 
him  as  if  she  liked  him  very  much. 

This  was  all  he  expected  of  her,  for  it  did  not  be- 
long to  the  cast  of  her  beauty  to  betray  a  vulgar 

13 


194  LADY  BARBERINA. 

infatuation.  That  beauty  was  more  delightful  to  him 
than  ever ;  and  there  was  a  softness  about  her  which 
seemed  to  say  to  him  that  from  this  moment  she  was 
quite  his  own.  He  felt  more  than  ever  the  value  of 
such  a  possession ;  it  came  over  him  more  than  ever 
that  it  had  taken  a  great  social  outlay  to  produce  such 
a  mixture.  Simple  and  girlish  as  she  was,  and  not 
particularly  quick  in  the  give  and  take  of  conversa- 
tion, she  seemed  to  him  to  have  a  part  of  the  history 
of  England  in  her  blood ;  she  was  a  r&umtf  of  genera- 
tions of  privileged  people,  and  of  centuries  of  rich 
country-life.  Between  these  two,  of  course,  there 
was  no  allusion  to  the  question  which  had  been  put 
into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Hilary,  and  the  last  thing  that 
occurred  to  Jackson  Lemon  was  that  Lady  Barb  had 
views  as  to  his  settling  a  fortune  upon  her  before 
their  marriage.  It  may  appear  singular,  but  he 
had  not  asked  himself  whether  his  money  operated 
upon  her  in  any  degree  as  a  bribe ;  and  this  was  be- 
cause, instinctively,  he  felt  that  such  a  speculation 
was  idle,  —  the  point  was  not  to  be  ascertained, — 
and  because  he  was  willing  to  assume  that  it  was 
agreeable  to  her  that  she  should  continue  to  live  in 
luxury.  It  was  eminently  agreeable  to  him  that  he 
might  enable  her  to  do  so.  He  was  acquainted  with 
the  mingled  character  of  human  motives,  and  he  was 
glad  that  he  was  rich  enough  to  pretend  to  the  hand 
of  a  young  woman  who,  for  the  best  of  reasons,  would 
be  very  expensive.  After  that  happy  hour  in  the 
music-room  he  had  ridden  with  her  twice;  but  he 


LADY  BARBERINA.  195 

had  not  found  her  otherwise  accessible.  She  had  let 
him  know,  the  second  time  they  rode,  that  Lady 
Canterville  had  directed  her  to  make,  for  the  moment, 
no  further  appointment  witk  him  ;  and  on  his  present- 
ing himself,  more  than  once  at  the  house,  he  had  been 
told  that  neither  the  mother  nor  the  daughter  was  at 
home ;  it  had  been  added  that  Lady  Barberina  was 
staying  at  Eoehampton.  On  giving  him  that  infor- 
mation in  the  Park,  Lady  Barb  had  looked  at  him 
with  a  mute  reproach,  —  there  was  always  a  certain 
superior  dumbness  in  her  eyes,  —  as  if  he  were  expos- 
ing her  to  an  annoyance  that  she  ought  to  be  spared ; 
as  if  he  were  taking  an  eccentric  line  on  a  question 
that  all  well-bred  people  treated  in  the  conventional 
way.  His  induction  from  this  was  not  that  she 
wished  to  be  secure  about  his  money,  but  that,  like 
a  dutiful  English  daughter,  she  received  her  opinions 
(on  points  that  were  indifferent  to  her)  ready-made 
from  a  mamma  whose  fallibility  had  never  been 
exposed.  He  knew  by  this  that  his  solicitor  had 
answered  Mr.  Hilary's  letter,  and  that  Lady  Canter- 
ville's  coolness  was  the  fruit  of  this  correspondence. 
The  effect  of  it  was  not  in  the  least  to  make  him 
come  round,  as  he  phrased  it ;  he  had  not  the  small- 
est intention  of  doing  that.  Lady  Canterville  had 
spoken  of  the  traditions  of  her  family ;  but  he  had  no 
need  to  go  to  his  family  for  his  own.  They  resided 
within  himself ;  anything  that  he  had  definitely  made 
up  his  mind  to,  acquired  in  an  hour  the  force  of  a 
tradition.  Meanwhile,  he  was  in  the  detestable  posi- 


196  LADY  BARBERINA. 

tion  of  not  knowing  whether  or  no  he  were  engaged. 
He  wrote  to  Lady  Barb  to  inquire,  —  it  being  so 
strange  that  she  should  not  receive  him;  and  she 
answered,  in  a  very  pretty  little  letter,  which  had  to 
his  mind  a  sort  of  bygone  quality,  an  old-fashioned 
freshness,  as  if  it  might  have  been  written  in  the  last 
century  by  Clarissa  or  Amelia :  she  answered  that 
she  did  not  in  the  least  understand  the  situation; 
that,  of  course,  she  would  never  give  him  up ;  that 
her  mother  had  said  that  there  were  the  best  reasons 
for  their  not  going  too  fast ;  that,  thank  God,  she  was 
yet  young,  and  could  wait  as  long  as  he  would ;  but 
that  she  begged  he  would  n't  write  her  anything  about 
money-matters,  as  she  could  never  comprehend  them. 
Jackson  felt  that  he  was  in  no  danger  whatever  of 
making  this  last  mistake ;  he  only  noted  how  Lady 
Barb  thought  it  natural  that  there  should  be  a  dis- 
cussion ;  and  this  made  it  vivid  to  him  afresh  that 
he  had  got  hold  of  a  daughter  of  the  Crusaders.  His 
ingenious  mind  could  appreciate  this  hereditary  as- 
sumption perfectly,  at  the  same  time  that,  to  light 
his  own  footsteps,  it  remained  entirely  modern.  He 
believed  —  or  he  thought  he  believed  —  that  in  the 
end  he  should  marry  Barberina  Clement  on  his  own 
terms ;  but  in  the  interval  there  was  a  sensible  in- 
dignity in  being  challenged  and  checked.  One  effect 
of  it,  indeed,  was  to  make  him  desire  the  girl  more 
keenly.  When  she  was  not  before  his  eyes  in  the 
flesh,  she  hovered  before  him  as  an  image  ;  and  this 
image  had  reasons  of  its  own  for  being  a  radiant  pic- 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  197 

ture.  There  were  moments,  however,  when  he  wearied 
of  looking  at  it ;  it  was  so  impalpable  and  thankless, 
and  then  Jackson  Lemon,  for  the  first  time  in  his 
life,  was  melancholy.  He  *felt  alone  in  London,  and 
very  much  out  of  it,  in  spite  of  all  the  acquaintances 
he  had  made,  and  the  bills  he  had  paid ;  he  felt  the 
need  of  a  greater  intimacy  than  any  he  had  formed 
(save,  of  course,  in  the  case  of  Lady  Barb).  He 
wanted  to  vent  his  disgust,  to  relieve  himself,  from 
the  American  point  of  view.  He  felt  that  in  enga- 
ging in  a  contest  with  the  great  house  of  Canterville, 
he  was,  after  all,  rather  single.  That  singleness  was, 
of  course,  in  a  great  measure  an  inspiration ;  but  it 
pinched  him  a  little  at  moments.  Then  he  wished 
his  mother  had  been  in  London,  for  he  used  to  talk 
of  his  affairs  a  great  deal  with  this  delightful  parent, 
who  had  a  soothing  way  of  advising  him  in  the  sense 
he  liked  best.  He  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  wish 
he  had  never  laid  eyes  on  Lady  Barb,  and  had  fallen 
in  love  with  some  transatlantic  maiden  of  a  similar 
composition.  He  presently  came  back,  of  course,  to 
the  knowledge  that  in  the  United  States  there  was  — 
and  there  could  be  —  nothing  similar  to  Lady  Barb  ; 
for  was  it  not  precisely  as  a  product  of  the  English 
climate  and  the  British  constitution  that  he  valued 
her  ?  He  had  relieved  himself,  from  his  American 
point  of  view,  by  speaking  his  mind  to  Lady  Beau- 
chemin,  who  confessed  that  she  was  very  much  vexed 
with  her  parents.  She  agreed  with  him  that  they 
had  made  a  great  mistake ;  they  ought  to  have  left 


198  LADY  BARBERINA. 

him  free ;  and  she  expressed  her  confidence  that 
that  freedom  would  be  for  her  family,  as  it  were, 
like  the  silence  of  the  sage,  golden.  He  must  excuse 
them;  he  must  remember  that  what  was  asked  of 
him  had  been  their  custom  for  centuries.  She  did 
not  mention  her  authority  as  to  the  origin  of  customs, 
but  she  assured  him  that  she  would  say  three  words 
to  her  father  and  mother,  which  would  make  it  all 
right.  Jackson  answered  that  customs  were  all  very 
well,  but  that  intelligent  people  recognized,  when 
they  saw  it,  the  right  occasion  for  departing  from 
them ;  and  with  this  he  awaited  the  result  of  Lady 
Beauchemin's  remonstrance.  It  had  not  as  yet  been 
perceptible,  and  it  must  be  said  that  this  charming 
woman  was  herself  much  bothered.  When,  on  her 
venturing  to  say  to  her  mother  that  she  thought  a 
wrong  line  had  been  taken  with  regard  to  her  sister's 
pr&endant,  Lady  Canterville  had  replied  that  Mr. 
Lemon's  unwillingness  to  settle  anything  was  in  it- 
self a  proof  of  what  they  had  feared,  the  unstable 
nature  of  his  fortune  (for  it  was  useless  to  talk  — 
this  gracious,  lady  could  be  very  decided  —  there 
could  be  no  serious  reason  but  that  one  — )  on  meet- 
ing this  argument,  as  I  say,  Jackson's  protectress  felt 
considerably  baffled.  It  was  perhaps  true,  as  her 
mother  said,  that  if  they  did  n't  insist  upon  proper 
guaranties,  Barberina  might  be  left  in  a  few  years 
with  nothing  but  the  stars  and  stripes  (this  odd 
phrase  was  a  quotation  from  Mr.  Lemon)  to  cover  her. 
Lady  Beauchemin  tried  to  reason  it  out  with  Lady 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  199 

Marmaduke ;  but  these  were  complications  unforeseen 
by  Lady  Marmaduke  in  her  project  of  an  Anglo- 
American  society.  She  was  obliged  to  confess  that 
Mr.  Lemon's  fortune  could  not  have  the  solidity  of 
long-established  things ;  it  was  a  very  new  fortune 
indeed.  His  father  had  made  the  greater  part  of  it 
all  in  a  lump,  a  few  years  before  his  death,  in  the 
extraordinary  way  in  which  people  made  money  in 
America ;  that,  of  course,  was  why  the  son  had  those 
singular  professional  attributes.  He  had  begun  to 
study  to  be  a  doctor  very  young,  before  his  expecta- 
tions were  so  great.  Then  he  had  found  he  was  very 
clever,  and  very  fond  of  it ;  and  he  had  kept  on,  be- 
cause, after  all,  in  America,  where  there  were  no 
country  gentlemen,  a  young  man  had  to  have  some- 
thing to  do,  don't  you  know  ?  And  Lady  Marma- 
duke, like  an  enlightened  woman,  intimated  that  in' 
such  a  case  she  thought  it  in  much  better  taste  not 
to  try  to  sink  anything.  "Because,  in  America,  don't 
you  see,"  she  reasoned,  "  you  can't  sink  it  —  nothing 
will  sink.  Everything  is  floating  about  —  in  the 
newspapers."  And  she  tried  to  console  her  friend  by 
remarking  that  if  Mr.  Lemon's  fortune  was  precari- 
ous, it  was  at  all  events  so  big.  That  was  just  the 
trouble  for  Lady  Beauchemin ;  it  was  so  big,  and  yet 
they  were  going  to  lose  it.  He  was  as  obstinate  as 
a  mule ;  she  was  sure  he  would  never  come  round. 
Lady  Marmaduke  declared  that  he  would  come  round ; 
she  even  offered  to  bet  a  dozen  pair  of  gants  de  Suede 
on  it ;  and  she  added  that  this  consummation  lay 


200  LADY  BARBERINA. 

quite  in  the  hands  of  Barberina.  Lady  Beauchemin 
promised  herself  to  converse  with  her  sister;  for  it 
was  not  for  nothing  that  she  herself  had  felt  the 
international  contagion. 

Jackson  Lemon,  to  dissipate  his  chagrin,  had  re- 
turned to  the  sessions  of  the  medical  congress,  where, 
inevitably,  he  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  Sidney 
Feeder,  who  enjoyed  in  this  disinterested  assembly 
a  high  popularity.  It  was  Dr.  Feeder's  earnest 
desire  that  his  old  friend  should  share  it,  which  was 
all  the  more  easy  as  the  medical  congress  was  really, 
as  the  young  physician  observed,  a  perpetual  sym- 
posium. Jackson  Lemon  entertained  the  whole  body 
—  entertained  it  profusely,  and  in  a  manner  befitting 
one  of  the  patrons  of  science  rather  than  its  humbler 
votaries ;  but  these  dissipations  only  made  him  for- 
get for  a  moment  that  his  relations  with  the  house 
of  Canterville  were  anomalous.  His  great  difficulty 
punctually  came  back  to  him,  and  Sidney  Feeder  saw 
it  stamped  upon  his  brow.  Jackson  Lemon,  with  his 
acute  inclination  to  open  himself,  was  on  the  point, 
more  than  once,  of  taking  the  sympathetic  Sidney 
into  his  confidence.  His  friend  gave  him  easy  oppor- 
tunity; he  asked  him  what  it  was  he  was  thinking 
of  all  the  time,  and  whether  the  young  marchioness 
had  concluded  .she  could  n't  swallow  a  doctor.  These 
forms  of  speech  were  displeasing  to  Jackson  Lemon, 
whose  fastidiousness  was  nothing  new;  but  it  was 
for  even  deeper  reasons  that  he  said  to  himself  that, 
for  such  complicated  cases  as  his,  there  was  no 


LADY  BARBERINA.  201 

assistance  in  Sidney  Feeder.  To  understand  his  situ- 
ation one  must  know  the  world;  and  the  child  of 
Cincinnati  didn't  know  the  world,  —  at  least  the 
world  with  which  his  friend  was  now  concerned. 

"  Is  there  a  hitch  in  your  marriage  ?  Just  tell  me 
that,"  Sidney  Feeder  had  said,  taking  everything  for 
granted,  in  a  manner  which  was  in  itself  a  proof  of 
great  innocence.  It  is  true  he  had  added  that  he 
supposed  he  had  no  business  to  ask ;  hut  he  had  been 
anxious  about  it  ever  since  hearing  from  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Freer  that  the  British  aristocracy  was  down  on  the 
medical  profession.  "Do  they  want  you  to  give  it 
up  ?  Is  that  what  the  hitch  is  about  ?  Don't  desert 
your  colors,  Jackson.  The  repression  of  pain,  the 
mitigation  of  misery,  constitute  surely  the  noblest 
profession  in  the  world." 

"My  dear  fellow,  you  don't  know  what  you  are 
talking  about,"  Jackson  observed,  for  answer  to  this. 
"  I  have  n't  told  any  one  I  was  going  to  be  married ; 
still  less  have  I  told  any  one  that  any  one  objected 
to  my  profession.  I  should  like  to  see  them  do  it. 
I  have  got  out  of  the  swim  to-day,  but  I  don't  regard 
myself  as  the  sort  of  person  that  people  object  to. 
And  I  do  expect  to  do  something,  yet." 

"  Come  home,  then,  and  do  it.  And  excuse  me  if 
I  say  that  the  facilities  for  getting  married  are  much 
greater  over  there." 

"  You  don't  seem  to  have  found  them  very  great." 

"  I  have  never  had  time.  Wait  till  my  next  vaca- 
tion, and  you  will  see." 


202  LADY  DARDERINA. 

"  The  facilities  over  there  are  too  great.  Nothing 
is  good  but  what  is  difficult,"  said  Jackson  Lemon,  in 
a  tone  of  artificial  sententiousness  that  quite  tor- 
mented his  interlocutor. 

"Well,  they  have  got  their  backs  up,  I  can  see  that. 
I  'm  glad  you  like  it.  Only  if  they  despise  your  pro- 
fession, what  will  they  say  to  that  of  your  friends  ? 
If  they  think  you  are  queer,  what  would  they  think 
of  me  ? "  asked  Sidney  Feeder,  the  turn  of  whose 
mind  was  not,  as  a  general  thing,  in  the  least  sarcas- 
tic, but  who  was  pushed  to  this  sharpness  by  a  con- 
viction that  (in  spite  of  declarations  which  seemed 
half  an  admission  and  half  a  denial)  his  friend  was 
suffering  himself  to  be  bothered  for  the  sake  of  a 
good  which  might  be  obtained  elsewhere  without 
bother.  It  had  come  over  him  that  the  bother  was 
of  an  unworthy  kind. 

"My  dear  fellow,  all  that  is  idiotic."  That  had 
been  Jackson  Lemon's  reply ;  but  it  expressed  but  a 
portion  of  his  thoughts.  The  rest  was  inexpressible, 
or  almost ;  being  connected  with  a  sentiment  of  rage 
at  its  having  struck  even  so  genial  a  mind  as  Sidney 
Feeder's,  that  in  proposing  to  marry  a  daughter  of  the 
highest  civilization  he  was  going  out  of  his  way  — 
departing  from  his  natural  line.  Was  he  then  so 
ignoble,  so  pledged  to  inferior  things,  that  when  he 
saw  a  girl  who  (putting  aside  the  fact  that  she  had 
not  genius,  which  was  rare,  and  which,  though  he 
prized  rarity,  he  didn't  want)  seemed  to  him  the 
most  complete  feminine  nature  he  had  known,  he 


LADY  BARBERINA.  203 

was  to  think  himself  too  different,  too  incongruous, 
to  mate  with  her?  He  would  mate  with  whom 
he  chose;  that  was  the  upshot  of  Jackson  Lemon's 
reflections.  Several  days  elapsed,  during  which 
everybody  —  even  the  pure-minded,  like  Sidney 
Feeder  —  seemed  to  him  very  abject. 

I  relate  all  this  to  show  why  it  was  that  in  going 
to  see  Mrs.  Freer  he  was  prepared  much  less  to  be 
angry  with  people  who,  like  the  Dexter  Freers,  a 
month  before,  had  given  it  out  that  he  was  engaged 
to  a  peer's  daughter,  than  to  resent  the  insinuation 
that  there  were  obstacles  to  such  a  prospect  He  sat 
with  Mrs,  Freer  alone  for  half  an  hour,  in  the  sabbat- 
ical stillness  of  Jermyn  Street  Her  husband  had 
gone  for  a  walk  in  the  Park ;  he  always  walked  in 
the  Park  on  Sunday.  All  the  world  might  have  been 
there,  and  Jackson  and  Mrs.  Freer  in  sole  possession 
of  the  district  of  St  James's,  This  perhaps  had  some- 
thing to  do  with  making  him  at  last  rather  confiden- 
tial; the  influences  were  conciliatory,  persuasive. 
Mrs,  Freer  was  extremely  sympathetic;  she  treated 
him  like  a  person  she  had  known  from  the  age  of  ten ; 
asked  his  leave  to  continue  recumbent ;  talked  a  great 
deal  about  his  mother ;  and  seemed  almost,  for  a  while, 
to  perform  the  kindly  functions  of  that  lady.  It  had 
been  wise  of  her  from  the  first  not  to  allude,  even 
indirectly,  to  his  having  neglected  so  long  to  call ;  her 
silence  on  this  point  was  in  the  best  taste.  Jackson 
Lemon  had  forgotten  that  it  was  a  habit  with  her, 
and  indeed  a  high  accomplishment,  never  to  reproach 


204  LADY  BARBERINA. 

people  with  these  omissions.  You  might  have  left 
her  alone  for  two  years,  her  greeting  was  always  the 
same ;  she  was  never  either  too  delighted  to  see  you, 
or  not  delighted  enough.  After  a  while,  however,  he 
perceived  that  her  silence  had  been  to  a  certain  ex- 
tent a  reference ;  she  appeared  to  take  for  granted  that 
he  devoted  all  his  hours  to  a  certain  young  lady.  It 
came  over  him,  for  a  moment,  that  his  country  peo- 
ple took  a  great  deal  for  granted;  but  when  Mrs. 
Freer,  rather  abruptly,  sitting  up  on  her  sofa,  said  to 
him,  half  simply,  half  solemnly,  u  And  now,  my  dear 
Jackson,  I  want  you  to  tell  me  something ! "  —  he 
perceived  that,  after  all,  she  did  n't  pretend  to  know 
more  about  the  impending  matter  than  he  himself 
did.  In  the  course  of  a  quarter  of  an  hour  —  so  ap- 
preciatively she  listened  —  he  had  told  her  a  good 
deal  about  it.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had  said  so 
much  to  any  one,  and  the  process  relieved  him  even 
more  than  he  would  have  supposed.  It  made  certain 
things  clear  to  him,  by  bringing  them  to  a  point  — 
above  all,  the  fact  that  he  had  been  wronged.  He 
made  no  allusion  whatever  to  its  being  out  of  the 
usual  way  that,  as  an  American  doctor,  he  should  sue 
for  the  hand  of  a  marquis's  daughter ;  and  this  reserve 
was  not  voluntary,  it  was  quite  unconscious.  His 
mind  was  too  full  of  the  offensive  conduct  of  the  Can- 
tervilles,  and  the  sordid  side  of  their  want  of  confi- 
dence. He  could  not  imagine  that  while  he  talked 
to  Mrs.  Freer  —  and  it  amazed  him  afterward  that 
he  should  have  chattered  so ;  he  could  account  for  it 


LADY  BARBERINA.  .  205 

only  by  the  state  of  his  nerves  —  she  should  be  think- 
ing only  of  the  strangeness  of  the  situation  he  sketched 
for  her.  She  thought  Americans  as  good  as  other 
people,  but  she  did  n't  see  where,  in  American  life, 
the  daughter  of  a  marquis  would,  as  she  phrased  it, 
work  in.  To  take  a  simple  instance,  —  they  coursed 
through  Mrs.Freer's  mind  with  extraordinary  speed, — 
would  she  not  always  expect  to  go  in  to  dinner  first  ? 
As  a  novelty,  over  there,  they  might  like  to  see  her 
do  it,  at  first ;  there  might  be  even  a  pressure  for 
places  for  the  spectacle.  But  with  the  increase  of 
every  kind  of  sophistication  that  was  taking  place  in 
America,  the  humorous  view  to  which  she  would  owe 
her  safety  might  not  continue  to  be  taken ;  and  then 
where  would  Lady  Barberina  be  ?  This  was  but  a 
small  instance  ;  but  Mrs.  Freer's  vivid  imagination  — 
much  as  she  had  lived  in  Europe,  she  knew  her  native 
land  so  well  —  saw  a  host  of  others  massing  them- 
selves behind  it.  The  consequence  of  all  of  which 
was  that  after  listening  to  him  in  the  most  engaging 
silence,  she  raised  her  clasped  hands,  pressed  them 
against  her  breast,  lowered  her  voice  to  a  tone  of 
entreaty,  and,  with  her  perpetual  little  smile,  uttered 
three  words  :  "  My  dear  Jackson,  don't  —  don't  — 
don't." 

"  Don't  what  ?  "  he  asked,  staring. 

"  Don't  neglect  the  chance  you  have  of  getting  out 
of  it ;  it  would  never  do." 

He  knew  what  she  meant  by  his  chance  of  getting 
out  of  it ;  in  his  many  meditations  he  had,  of  course, 


206  LADY  BARBERINA. 

not  overlooked  that.  The  ground  the  old  couple  had 
taken  about  settlements  (and  the  fact  that  Lady  Beau- 
chemin  had  not  come  back  to  him  to  tell  him,  as  she 
promised,  that  she  had  moved  them,  proved  how  firmly 
they  were  rooted)  would  have  offered  an  all-sufficient 
pretext  to  a  man  who  should  have  repented  of  his 
advances.  Jackson  Lemon  knew  that ;  but  he  knew 
at  the  same  time  that  he  had  not  repented.  The  old 
couple's  want  of  imagination  did  not  in  the  least  alter 
the  fact  that  Barberina  was,  as  he  had  told  her  father, 
a  beautiful  type.  Therefore  he  simply  said  to  Mrs. 
Freer  that  he  did  n't  in  the  least  wish  to  get  out  of  it ; 
he  was  as  much  in  it  as  ever,  and  he  intended  to  re- 
main there.  But  what  did  she  mean,  he  inquired  in 
a  moment,  by  her  statement  that  it  would  never  do  ? 
Why  wouldn't  it  do  ?  Mrs.  Freer  replied  by  another 
inquiry,  —  Should  he  really  like  her  to  tell  him  ?  It 
would  n't  do,  because  Lady  Barb  would  not  be  satis- 
fied with  her  place  at  dinner.  She  would  not  be  con- 
tent —  in  a  society  of  commoners  —  with  any  but  the 
best ;  and  the  best  she  could  not  expect  (and  it  was 
to  be  supposed  that  he  did  not  expect  her)  always  to 
have. 

"  What  do  you  mean  by  commoners  ? "  Jackson 
Lemon  demanded,  looking  very  serious. 

"  I  mean  you,  and  me,  and  my  poor  husband,  and 
Dr.  Feeder,"  said  Mrs.  Freer. 

"  I  don't  see  how  there  can  be  commoners  where 
there  are  not  lords.  It  is  the  lord  that  makes  the 
commoner ;  and  vice  versd" 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  207 

"  Won't  a  lady  do  as  well  ?  Lady  Barberina  —  a 
single  English  girl  —  can  make  a  million  inferiors." 

"  She  will  be,  before  anything  else,  my  wife ;  and 
she  will  not  talk  about  inferiors  any  more  than  I  do. 
I  never  do  ;  it 's  very  vulgar." 

"  I  don't  know  what  she  11  talk  about,  my  dear 
Jackson,  but  she  will  think  ;  and  her  thoughts  won't 
be  pleasant,  —  I  mean  for  others.  Do  you  expect  to 
sink  her  to  your  own  rank  ? " 

Jackson  Lemon's  bright  little  eyes  were  fixed  more 
brightly  than  ever  upon  his  hostess.  "  I  don't  under- 
stand you ;  and  I  don't  think  you  understand  your- 
self." This  was  not  absolutely  candid,  for  he  did 
understand  Mrs.  Freer  to  a  certain  extent;  it  has 
been  related  that  before  he  asked  Lady  Barb's  hand 
of  her  parents  there  had  been  moments  when  he  him- 
self was  not  very  sure  that  the  flower  of  the  British 
aristocracy  would  flourish  in  American  soil.  But  an 
intimation  from  another  person  that  it  was  beyond 
his  power  to  pass  off  his  wife  —  whether  she  were  the 
daughter  of  a  peer  or  of  a  shoemaker  —  set  all  his 
blood  on  fire.  It  quenched  on  the  instant  his  own 
perception  of  difficulties  of  detail,  and  made  him  feel 
only  that  he  was  dishonored  —  he,  the  heir  of  all  the 
ages, — by  such  insinuations.  It  was  his  belief  — 
though  he  had  never  before  had  occasion  to  put  it  for- 
ward —  that  his  position,  one  of  the  best  in  the  world, 
was  one  of  those  positions  that  make  everything  pos- 
sible. He  had  had  the  best  education  the  age  could 
offer,  for  if  he  had  rather  wasted  his  time  at  Harvard, 


208  LADY  BARBERINA. 

where  he  entered  very  young,  he  had,  as  he  believed, 
been  tremendously  serious  at  Heidelberg  and  at  Vi- 
enna. He  had  devoted  himself  to  one  of  the  noblest 
of  professions,  —  a  profession  recognized  as  such  every- 
where but  in  England,  —  and  he  had  inherited  a  for- 
tune far  beyond  the  expectation  of  his  earlier  years, 
the  years  when  he  cultivated  habits  of  work,  which 
alone  —  or  rather  in  combination  with  talents  that  he 
neither  exaggerated  nor  minimized — -would  have  con- 
duced to  distinction.  He  was  one  of  the  most  fortu- 
nate inhabitants  of  an  immense,  fresh,  rich  country,  a 
country  whose  future  was  admitted  to  be  incalculable, 
and  he  moved  with  perfect  ease  in  a  society  in  which 
he  was  not  overshadowed  by  others.  It  seemed  to 
him,  therefore,  beneath  his  dignity  to  wonder  whether 
he  could  afford,  socially  speaking,  to  marry  according 
to  his  taste.  Jackson  Lemon  pretended  to  be  strong ; 
and  what  was  the  use  of  being  strong  if  you  were  not 
prepared  to  undertake  things  that  timid  people  might 
find  difficult  ?  It  was  his  plan  to  marry  the  woman 
he  liked,  and  not  to  be  afraid  of  her  afterward.  The 
effect  of  Mrs.  Freer's  doubt  of  his  success  was  to 
represent  to  him  that  his  own  character  would  not 
cover  his  wife's ;  she  could  n't  have  made  him  feel 
otherwise  if  she  had  told  him  that  he  was  marrying 
beneath  him,  and  would  have  to  ask  for  indulgence. 
"  I  don't  believe  you  know  how  much  I  think  that 
any  woman  who  marries  me  will  be  doing  very  well," 
he  added,  directly. 

"  I  am  very  sure  of  that ;  but  it  is  n't  so  simple  — 


LADY  BARBERINA.  209 

one's  being  an  American/'  Mrs.  Freer  rejoined,  with 
a  little  philosophic  sigh. 

"  It 's  whatever  one  chooses  to  make  it." 

"  Well,  you  11  make  it  what  no  one  has  done  yet, 
if  you  take  that  young  lady  to  America  and  make  her 
happy  there." 

"  Do  you  think  it 's  such  a  very  dreadful  place  ? " 

"  No,  indeed ;  hut  she  will." 

Jackson  Lemon  got  up  from  his  chair,  and  took  up 
his  hat  and  stick.  He  had  actually  turned  a  little 
pale,  with  the  force  of  his  emotion  ;  it  had  made  him 
really  quiver  that  his  marriage  to  Lady  Barberina 
should  be  looked  at  as  too  high  a  flight.  He  stood  a 
moment  leaning  against  the  mantelpiece,  and  very 
much  tempted  to  say  to  Mrs.  Freer  that  she  was  a 
vulgar-minded  old  woman.  But  he  said  something 
that  was  really  more  to  the  point :  "  You  forget  that 
she  will  have  her  consolations." 

"  Don't  go  away,  or  I  shall  think  I  have  offended 
you.  You  can't  console  a  wounded  marchioness." 

"How  will  she  be  wounded?  People  will  be 
charming  to  her." 

"They  will  be  charming  to  her  — charming  to 
her!"  These  words  fell  from  the  lips  of  Dexter 
Freer,  who  had  opened  the  door  of  the  room  and  stood 
with  the  knob  in  his  hand,  putting  himself  into  rela- 
tion to  his  wife's  talk  with  their  visitor.  This  was 
accomplished  in  an  instant.  "  Of  course  I  know 
whom  you  mean,"  he  said,  while  he  exchanged  greet- 
ings with  Jackson  Lemon.  "My  wife  and  I  —  of 

14 


210  LADY  BARBERINA. 

course  you  know  we  are  great  busy  bodies  —  have 
talked  of  your  affair,  and  we  differ  about  it  com- 
pletely: she  sees  only  the  dangers,  and  I  see  the 
advantages." 

"  By  the  advantages  he  means  the  fun  for  us,"  Mrs. 
Freer  remarked,  settling  her  sofa- cushions. 

Jackson  looked  with  a  certain  sharp  blankness 
from  one  of  these  disinterested  judges  to  the  other ; 
and  even  yet  they  did  not  perceive  how  their  misdi- 
rected familiarities  wrought  upon  him.  It  was  hardly 
more  agreeable  to  him  to  know  that  the  husband 
wished  to  see  Lady  Barb  in  America,  than  to  know 
that  the  wife  had  a  dread  of  such  a  vision ;  for  there 
was  that  in  Dexter  Freer's  face  which  seemed  to  say 
that  the  thing  would  take  place  somehow  for  the 
benefit  of  the  spectators.  "  I  think  you  both  see  too 
much  —  a  great  deal  too  much,"  he  answered,  rather 
coldly. 

"  My  dear  young  man,  at  my  age  I  can  take  certain 
liberties,"  said  Dexter  Freer.  "Do  it  —  I  beseech 
you  to  do  it ;  it  has  never  been  done  before."  And 
then,  as  if  Jackson's  glance  had  challenged  this  last 
assertion,  he  went  on :  "  Never,  I  assure  you,  this 
particular  thing.  Young  female  members  of  the 
British  aristocracy  have  married  coachmen  and  fish- 
mongers, and  all  that  sort  of  thing ;  but  they  have 
never  married  you  and  me." 

"They  certainly  haven't  married  you,"  said  Mrs. 
Freer. 

"  I  am  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  advice."     It 


LADY  BARBERINA.  211 

may  be  thought  that  Jackson  Lemon  took  himself 
rather  seriously;  and  indeed  I  am  afraid  that  if  he 
had  not  done  so  there  would  have  been  no  occasion 
for  my  writing  this  little  history.  But  it  made  him 
almost  sick  to  hear  his  engagement  spoken  of  as  a 
curious  and  ambiguous  phenomenon.  He  might  have 
his  own  ideas  about  it  —  one  always  had  about  one's 
engagement ;  but  the  ideas  that  appeared  to  have 
peopled  the  imagination  of  his  friends  ended  by  kind- 
ling a  little  hot  spot  in  each  of  his  cheeks.  "  I  would 
rather  not  talk  any  more  about  my  little  plans,"  he 
added  to  Dexter  Freer.  "  I  have  been  saying  all  sorts 
of  absurd  things  to  Mrs.  Freer." 

"  They  have  been  most  interesting,"  that  lady  de- 
clared. "  You  have  been  very  stupidly  treated." 

"May  she  tell  me  when  you  go?"  her  husband 
asked  of  the  young  man. 

"  I  am  going  now ;  she  may  tell  you  whatever  she 
likes." 

"I  am  afraid  we  have  displeased  you,"  said  Mrs. 
Freer;  "I  have  said  too  much  what  I  think.  You 
must  excuse  me,  it's  all  for  your  mother." 

"  It 's  she  whom  I  want  Lady  Barberina  to  see ! " 
Jackson  Lemon  exclaimed,  with  the  inconsequence  of 
filial  affection. 

"  Deary  me  ! "  murmured  Mrs.  Freer. 

"  We  shall  go  back  to  America  to  see  how  you  get 
on,"  her  husband  said;  "and  if  you  succeed,  it  will 
be  a  great  precedent." 

"  Oh,  I  shall  succeed  ! "    And  with  this  he  took  his 


212  LADY  BARBERINA. 

departure.  He  walked  away  with  the  quick  step  of 
a  man  laboring  under  a  certain  excitement ;  walked 
up  to  Piccadilly  and  down  past  Hyde  Park  Corner. 
It  relieved  him  to  traverse  these  distances,  for  he  was 
thinking  hard,  under  the  influence  of  irritation ;  and 
locomotion  helped  him  to  think.  Certain  suggestions 
that  had  been  made  him  in  the  last  half-hour  rankled 
in  his  mind,  all  the  more  that  they  seemed  to  have 
a  kind  of  representative  value,  to  be  an  echo  of  the 
common  voice.  If  his  prospects  wore  that  face  to 
Mrs.  Freer,  they  would  probably  wear  it  to  others ; 
and  he  felt  a  sudden  need  of  showing  such  others  that 
they  took  a  pitiful  measure  of  his  position.  Jackson 
Lemon  walked  and  walked  till  he  found  himself  on 
the  highway  of  Hammersmith.  I  have  represented 
him  as  a  young  man  of  much  strength  of  purpose, 
and  I  may  appear  to  undermine  this  plea  when  I 
relate  that  he  wrote  that  evening  to  his  solicitor  that 
Mr.  Hilary  was  to  be  informed  that  he  would  agree  to 
any  proposals  for  settlements  that  Mr.  Hilary  should 
make.  Jackson's  strength  of  purpose  was  shown  in 
his  deciding  to  marry  Lady  Barberina  on  any  terms. 
It  seemed  to  him,  under  the  influence  of  his  desire  to 
prove  that  he  was  not  afraid  —  so  odious  was  the 
imputation  —  that  terms  of  any  kind  were  very 
superficial  things.  What  was  fundamental,  and  of 
the  essence  of  the  matter,  would  be  to  marry  Lady 
Barb  and  carry  everything  out. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  213 


V. 


"  ON  Sundays,  now,  you  might  be  at  home,"  Jack- 
son Lemon  said  to  his  wife  in  the  following  month  of 
March,  more  than  six  months  after  his  marriage. 

"  Are  the  people  any  nicer  on  Sundays  than  they 
are  on  other  days  ? "  Lady  Barberina  replied,  from 
the  depths  of  her  chair,  without  looking  up  from  a 
stiff  little  book. 

He  hesitated  a  single  instant  before  answering : 
"  I  don't  know  whether  they  are,  but  I  think  you 
might  be." 

"I'm  as  nice  as  I  know  how  to  be.  You  must 
take  me  as  I  am.  You  knew  when  you  married  me 
that  I  was  not  an  American." 

Jackson  Lemon  stood  before  the  fire,  towards 
which  his  wife's  face  was  turned  and  her  feet  were 
extended;  stood  there  some  time,  with  his  hands 
behind  him  and  his  eyes  dropped  a  little  obliquely 
upon  the  bent  head  and  richly-draped  figure  of  Lady 
Barberina.  It  may  be  said  without  delay  that  he 
was  irritated,  and  it  may  be  added  that  he  had  a 
double  cause.  He  felt  himself  to  be  on  the  verge  of 
the  first  crisis  that  had  occurred  between  himself 
and  his  wife,  —  the  reader  will  perceive  that  it  had 
occurred  rather  promptly,  —  and  he  was  annoyed  at 
his  annoyance.  A  glimpse  of  his  state  of  mind  be- 
fore his  marriage  has  been  given  to  the  reader,  who 
will  remember  that  at  that  period  Jackson  Lemon 


214  LADY  BARBERINA. 

somehow  regarded  himself  as  lifted  above  possibilities 
of  irritation.  When  one  was  strong,  one  was  not  irri- 
table ;  and  a  union  with  a  kind  of  goddess  would  of 
course  be  an  element  of  strength.  Lady  Barb  was  a 
goddess  still,  and  Jackson  Lemon  admired  his  wife  as 
much  as  the  day  he  led  her  to  the  altar ;  but  I  am 
not  sure  that  he  felt  as  strong. 

"  How  do  you  know  what  people  are  ?  "  he  said  in 
a  moment.  "  You  have  seen  so  few ;  you  are  perpet- 
ually denying  yourself.  If  you  should  leave  New 
York  to-morrow,  you  would  know  wonderfully  little 
about  it." 

"It's  all  the  same,"  said  Lady  Barb;  "the  people 
are  all  exactly  alike." 

"  How  can  you  tell  ?    You  never  see  them." 

"  Did  n't  I  go  out  every  night  for  the  first  two 
months  we  were  here  ? " 

"  It  was  only  to  about  a  dozen  houses,  —  always 
the  same ;  people,  moreover,  you  had  already  met  in 
London.  You  have  got  no  general  impressions." 

"That's  just  what  I  have  got;  I  had  them  before 
I  came.  Every  one  is  just  the  same ;  they  have  just 
the  same  names — just  the  same  manners." 

Again,  for  an  instant,  Jackson  Lemon  hesitated ; 
then  he  said,  in  that  apparently  artless  tone  of  which 
mention  has  already  been  made,  and  which  he  some- 
times used  in  London  during  his  wooing  :  "  Don't  you 
like  it  over  here  ? " 

Lady  Barb  raised  her  eyes  from  her  book.  "  Did 
you  expect  me  to  like  it  ? " 


LADY  BARBERINA.  215 

"I  hoped  you  would,  of  course.  I  think  I  told 
you  so." 

"  I  don't  remember.  You  said  very  little  about  it ; 
you  seemed  to  make  a  kind  of  mystery.  I  knew,  of 
course,  you  expected  me  to  live  here,  but  I  didn't 
know  you  expected  me  to  like  it." 

"  You  thought  I  asked  of  you  the  sacrifice,  as  it 
were." 

"  I  am  sure  I  don't  know,"  said  Lady  Barb.  She 
got  up  from  her  chair  and  tossed  the  volume  she  had 
been  reading  into  the  empty  seat  "  I  recommend 
you  to  read  that  book,"  she  added. 

"  Is  it  interesting  ?  " 

"  It 's  an  American  novel" 

"  I  never  read  novels." 

"You  had  better  look  at  that  one;  it  will  show 
you  the  kind  of  people  you  want  me  to  know." 

"  I  have  no  doubt  it 's  very  vulgar,"  said  Jackson 
Lemon ;  "  I  don't  see  why  you  read  it." 

"  What  else  can  I  do  ?  I  can't  always  be  riding  in 
the  Park ;  I  hate  the  Park,"  Lady  Barb  remarked. 

"  It 's  quite  as  good  as  your  own,"  said  her  hus- 
band. 

She  glanced  at  him  with  a  certain  quickness,  her 
eyebrows  slightly  lifted.  "  Do  you  mean  the  park  at 
Pasterns  ? " 

"  No  ;  I  mean  the  park  in  London." 

"I  don't  care  about  London.  One  was  only  in 
London  a  few  weeks." 

"  I  suppose  you  miss  the  country,"  said  Jackson 


216  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Lemon.  It  was  his  idea  of  life  that  he  should  not 
be  afraid  of  anything,  not  be  afraid,  in  any  situation, 
of  knowing  the  worst  that  was  to  be  known  about  it ; 
and  the  demon  of  a  courage  with  which  discretion 
was  not  properly  commingled  prompted  him  to  take 
soundings  which  were  perhaps  not  absolutely  neces- 
sary for  safety,  and  yet  which  revealed  unmistakable 
rocks.  It  was  useless  to  know  about  rocks  if  he 
could  n't  avoid  them ;  the  only  thing  was  to  trust  to 
the  wind. 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  miss.  I  think  I  miss  every- 
thing ! "  This  was  his  wife's  answer  to  his  too- 
curious  inquiry.  It  was  not  peevish,  for  that  is  not 
the  tone  of  a  goddess ;  but  it  expressed  a  good  deal  — 
a  good  deal  more  than  Lady  Barb,  who  was  rarely 
eloquent,  had  expressed  before.  Nevertheless,  though 
his  question  had  been  precipitate,  Jackson  Lemon 
said  to  himself  that  he  might  take  his  time  to  think 
over  what  his  wife's  little  speech  contained ;  he  could 
not  help  seeing  that  the  future  would  give  him  abun- 
dant opportunity  for  that.  He  was  in  no  hurry  to 
ask  himself  whether  poor  Mrs.  Freer,  in  Jermyn 
Street,  might  not,  after  all,  have  been  right  in  saying 
that,  in  regard  to  marrying  the  product  of  an  English 
caste,  it  was  not  so  simple  to  be  an  American  doctor 
—  might  avail  little  even,  in  such  a  case,  to  be  the 
heir  of  all  the  ages.  The  transition  was  complicated, 
but  in  his  bright  mind  it  was  rapid,  from  the  brush 
of  a  momentary  contact  with  such  ideas  to  certain 
considerations  which  led  him  to  say,  after  an  instant, 


LADY  BARBERINA.  217 

to  his  wife,  "  Should  you  like  to  go  down  into  Con- 
necticut ? " 

"  Into  Connecticut  ?  " 

"  That 's  one  of  our  States ;  it 's  about  as  large  as 
Ireland.  I  '11  take  you  there  if  you  like." 

"  What  does  one  do  there  ? " 

"  We  can  try  and  get  some  hunting." 

"You  and  I  alone?" 

"  Perhaps^  we  can  get  a  party  to  join  us." 

"The  people  in  the  State  ?" 

"  Yes ;  we  might  propose  it  to  them." 

"  The  tradespeople  in  the  towns  ?  " 

"  Very  true ;  they  will  have  to  mind  their  shops," 
said  Jackson  Lemon.     "  But  we  might  hunt  alone." 

"  Are  there  any  foxes  ? " 

"  No ;  but  there  are  a  few  old  cows." 

Lady  Barb  had  already  perceived  that  her  husband 
took  it  into  his  head  once  in  a  while  to  laugh  at  her, 
and  she  was  aware  that  the  present  occasion  was 
neither  worse  nor  better  than  some  others.  She  did  n't 
mind  it  particularly  now,  though  in  England  it  would 
have  disgusted  her ;  she  had  the  consciousness  of  vir- 
tue,— an  immense  comfort, — and  nattered  herself  that 
she  had  learned  the  lesson  of  an  altered  standard  of 
fitness ;  there  were,  moreover,  so  many  more  disagree- 
able things  in  America  than  being  laughed  at  by 
one's  husband.  But  she  pretended  to  mind  it,  because 
it  made  him  stop,  and  above  all  it  stopped  discussion, 
which  with  Jackson  was  so  often  jocular,  and  none 
the  less  tiresome  for  that.  "  I  only  want  to  be  left 


218  LADY  BARBERLNA. 

alone,"  she  said,  in  answer  —  though,  indeed,  it  had 
not  the  manner  of  an  answer  —  to  his  speech  about 
the  cows.  With  this  she  wandered  away  to  one  of 
the  windows  which  looked  out  in  the  Fifth  Avenue. 
She  was  very  fond  of  these  windows,  and  she  had 
taken  a  great  fancy  to  the  Fifth  Avenue,  which,  in 
the  high-pitched  winter  weather,  when  everything 
sparkled,  was  a  spectacle  full  of  novelty.  It  will  be 
seen  that  she  was  not  wholly  unjust  to  her  adoptive 
country :  she  found  it  delightful  to  look  out  of  the 
window.  This  was  a  pleasure  she  had  enjoyed  in 
London  only  in  the  most  furtive  manner;  it  was  not 
the  kind  of  thing  that  girls  did  in  England.  Besides, 
in  London,  in  Hill  Street,  there  was  nothing  partic- 
ular to  see ;  but  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  everything  and 
every  one  went  by,  and  observation  was  made  con- 
sistent with  dignity  by  the  quantities  of  brocade  and 
lace  in  which  the  windows  were  draped,  which,  some- 
how, would  not  have  been  tidy  in  England,  and  which 
made  an  ambush,  without  concealing  the  brilliant 
day.  Hundreds  of  women  —  the  curious  women  of 
New  York,  who  were  unlike  any  that  Lady  Barb  had 
hitherto  seen  —  passed  the  house  every  hour ;  and  her 
ladyship  was  infinitely  entertained  and  mystified  by 
the  sight  of  their  clothes.  She  spent  a  good  deal 
more  time  than  she  was  aware  of  in  this  amusement ; 
and  if  she  had  been  addicted  to  returning  upon  her- 
self, or  asking  herself  for  an  account  of  her  conduct 
— an  inquiry  which  she  did  not,  indeed,  completely 
neglect,  but  treated  very  cursorily,  —  it  would  have 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  219 

made  her  smile  sadly  to  think  what  she  appeared 
mainly  to  have  come  to  America  for,  conscious  though 
she  was  that  her  tastes  were  very  simple,  and  that  so 
long  as  she  did  n't  hunt,  it  did  n't  much  matter  what 
she  did. 

Her  husband  turned  about  to  the  fire,  giving  a  push 
with  his  foot  to  a  log  that  had  fallen  out  of  its  place. 
Then  he  said,  —  and  the  connection  with  the  words 
she  had  just  uttered  was  apparent  enough,  — "  You 
really  must  be  at  home  on  Sundays,  you  know.  I 
used  to  like  that  so  much  in  London.  All  the  best 
women  here  do  it.  You  had  better  begin  to-day.  I 
am  going  to  see  my  mother ;  if  I  meet  any  one  I  will 
tell  them  to  come." 

"Tell  them  not  to  talk  so  much,"  said  Lady  Barb, 
among  her  lace  curtains. 

"  Ah,  my  dear,"  her  husband  replied,  "  it  is  n't  every 
one  that  has  your  concision."  And  he  went  and 
stood  behind  her  in  the  window,  putting  his  arm 
round  her  waist.  It  was  as  much  of  a  satisfaction  to 
him  as  it  had  been  six  months  before,  at  the  time  the 
solicitors  were  settling  the  matter,  that  this  flower  of 
an  ancient  stem  should  be  worn  upon  his  own  breast ; 
he  still  thought  its  fragrance  a  thing  quite  apart,  and 
it  was  as  clear  as  day  to  him  that  his  wife  was  the 
handsomest  woman  in  New  York.  He  had  begun, 
after  their  arrival,  by  telling  her  this  very  often  ;  but 
the  assurance  brought  no  color  to  her  cheek,  no  light 
to  her  eyes ;  to  be  the  handsomest  w^oman  in  New 
York  evidently  did  not  seem  to  her  a  position  in  life. 


220  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Moreover,  the  reader  may  be  informed  that,  oddly 
enough,  Lady  Barb  did  not  particularly  believe  this 
assertion.  There  were  some  very  pretty  women  in 
New  York,  and  without  in  the  least  wishing  to  be 
like  them  —  she  had  seen  no  woman  in  America 
whom  she  desired  to  resemble  —  she  envied  some  of 
their  looks.  It  is  probable  that  her  own  finest  points 
were  those  of  which  she  was  most  unconscious.  But 
her  husband  was  aware  of  all  of  them  ;  nothing  could 
exceed  the  minuteness  of  his  appreciation  of  his  wife. 
It  was  a  sign  of  this  that  after  he  had  stood  behind 
her  a  moment  he  kissed  her  very  tenderly.  "  Have 
you  any  message  for  my  mother  ? "  he  asked. 

"  Please  give  her  my  love.  And  you  might  take 
her  that  book." 

"  What  book  ?  " 

"  That  nasty  one  I  have  been  reading." 

"  Oh,  bother  your  books,"  said  Jackson  Lemon, 
with  a  certain  irritation,  as  he  went  out  of  the  room. 

There  had  been  a  good  many  things  in  her  life  in 
New  York  that  cost  Lady  Barb  an  effort ;  but  send- 
ing her  love  to  her  mother-in-law  was  not  one  of 
these.  She  liked  Mrs.  Lemon  better  than  any  one 
she  had  seen  in  America ;  she  was  the  only  person 
who  seemed  to  Lady  Barb  really  simple,  as  she  under- 
stood that  quality.  Many  people  had  struck  her  as 
homely  and  rustic,  and  many  others  as  pretentious 
and  vulgar ;  but  in  Jackson's  mother  she  had  found 
the  golden  mean  of  a  simplicity  which,  as  she  would 
have  said,  was  really  nice.  Her  sister,  Lady  Agatha, 


LADY  BARBER1NA.  221 

was  even  fonder  of  Mrs.  Lemon;  but  then  Lady 
Agatha  had  taken  the  most  extraordinary  fancy  to 
every  one  and  everything,  and  talked  as  if  America 
were  the  most  delightful  country  in  the  world.  She 
was  having  a  lovely  time  (she  already  spoke  the  most 
beautiful  American),  and  had  been,  during  the  win- 
ter that  was  just  drawing  to  a  close,  the  most  promi- 
nent girl  in  New  York.  She  had  gone  out  at  first 
with  her  sister ;  but  for  some  weeks  past  Lady  Barb 
had  let  so  many  occasions  pass,  that  Agatha  threw 
herself  into  the  arms  of  Mrs.  Lemon,  who  found  her 
extraordinarily  quaint  and  amusing,  and  was  de- 
lighted to  take  her  into  society.  Mrs.  Lemon,  as  an 
old  woman,  had  given  up  such  vanities ;  but  she  only 
wanted  a  motive,  and  in  her  good  nature  she  ordered 
a  dozen  new  caps,  and  sat  smiling  against  the  wall 
while  her  little  English  maid,  on  polished  floors,  to 
the  sound  of  music,  cultivated  the  American  step  as 
well  as  the  American  tone.  There  was  no  trouble, 
in  New  York,  about  going  out,  and  the  winter  was 
not  half  over  before  the  little  English  maid  found 
herself  an  accomplished  diner,  rolling  about,  without 
any  chaperon  at  all,  to  banquets  where  she  could 
count  upon  a  bouquet  at  her  plate.  She  had  had  a 
great  deal  of  correspondence  with  her  mother  on  this 
point,  and  Lady  Canterville  at  last  withdrew  her  pro- 
test, which  in  the  meantime  had  been  perfectly  use- 
less. It  was  ultimately  Lady  Canterville's  feeling 
that  if  she  had  married  the  handsomest  of  her  daugh- 
ters to  an  American  doctor,  she  might  let  another 


222  LADY  BARBERINA. 

become  a  professional  raconteuse  (Agatha  had  written 
to  her  that  she  was  expected  to  talk  so  much),  strange 
as  such  a  destiny  seemed  for  a  girl  of  nineteen.  Mrs. 
Lemon  was  even  a  much  simpler  woman  than  Lady 
Barberina  thought  her ;  for  she  had  not  noticed  that 
Lady  Agatha  danced  much  oftener  with  Herman 
Longstraw  than  with  any  one  else.  Jackson  Lemon, 
though  he  went  little  to  balls,  had  discovered  this 
truth,  and  he  looked  slightly  preoccupied  when,  after 
he  had  sat  five  minutes  with  his  mother  on  the  Sun- 
day afternoon  through  which  I  have  invited  the 
reader  to  trace  so  much  more  than  (I  am  afraid)  is 
easily  apparent  of  the  progress  of  this  simple  story, 
he  learned  that  his  sister-in-law  was  entertaining 
Mr.  Longstraw  in  the  library.  He  had  called  half 
an  hour  before,  and  she  had  taken  him  into  the  other 
room  to  show  him  the  seal  of  the  Cantervilles,  which 
she  had  fastened  to  one  of  her  numerous  trinkets  (she 
was  adorned  with  a  hundred  bangles  and  chains),  and 
the  proper  exhibition  of  which  required  a  taper  and 
a  stick  of  wax.  Apparently  he  was  examining  it 
very  carefully,  for  they  had  been  absent  a  good  while. 
Mrs.  Lemon's  simplicity  was  further  shown  by  the 
fact  that  she  had  not  measured  their  absence;  it 
was  only  when  Jackson  questioned  her  that  she 
remembered, 

Herman  Longstraw  was  a  young  Califoruian  who 
had  turned  up  in  New  York  the  winter  before,  and 
who  travelled  on  his  mustache,  as  they  were  under- 
stood to  say  in  his  native  State.  This  mustache, 


LADY  BARBERINA.  223 

and  some  of  the  accompanying  features,  were  very 
ornamental;  several  ladies  in  New  York  had  been 
known  to  declare  that  they  were  as  beautiful  as  a 
dream.  Taken  in  connection  with  his  tall  stature, 
his  familiar  good-nature,  and  his  remarkable  Western 
vocabulary,  they  constituted  his  only  social  capital ; 
for  of  the  two  great  divisions,  the  rich  Californians 
and  the  poor  Californians,  it  was  well  known  to 
which  he  belonged.  Jackson  Lemon  looked  at  him 
as  a  slightly  mitigated  cowboy,  and  was  somewhat 
vexed  at  his  dear  mother,  though  he  was  aware  that 
she  could  scarcely  figure  to  herself  what  an  effect 
such  an  account  as  that  would  produce  in  the  halls 
of  Canterville.  He  had  no  desire  whatever  to  play 
a  trick  on  the  house  to  which  he  was  allied,  and 
knew  perfectly  that  Lady  Agatha  had  not  been  sent 
to  America  to  become  entangled  with  a  Californian 
of  the  wrong  denomination.  He  had  been  perfectly 
willing  to  bring  her  ;  he  thought,  a  little  vindictively, 
that  this  would  operate  as  a  hint  to  her  parents  as  to 
what  he  might  have  been  inclined  to  do  if  they  had 
not  sent  Mr.  Hilary  after  him.  Herman  Longstraw, 
according  to  the  legend,  had  been  a  trapper,  a  squat- 
ter, a  miner,  a  pioneer,  —  had  been  everything  that 
one  could  be  in  the  romantic  parts  of  America,  and 
had  accumulated  masses  of  experience  before  the  age 
of  thirty.  He  had  shot  bears  in  the  Rockies  and  buf- 
faloes on  the  plains ;  and  it  was  even  believed  that 
he  had  brought  down  animals  of  a  still  more  danger- 
ous kind,  among  the  haunts  of  men.  There  had  been 


224  LADY  BARBERINA. 

a  story  that  he  owned  a  cattle-ranch  in  Arizona  ;  but 
a  later  and  apparently  more  authentic  version  of  it, 
though  it  represented  him  as  looking  after  the  cattle, 
did  not  depict  him  as  their  proprietor.  Many  of  the 
stories  told  about  him  were  false ;  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  his  mustache,  his  good-nature,  and  his 
accent  were  genuine.  He  danced  very  badly;  but 
Lady  Agatha  had  frankly  told  several  persons  that 
that  was  nothing  new  to  her ;  and  she  liked  (this, 
however,  she  did  not  tell)  Mr.  Herman  Longstraw. 
"What  she  enjoyed  in  America  was  the  revelation  of 
freedom ;  and  there  was  no  such  proof  of  freedom  as 
conversation  with  a  gentleman  who  dressed  in  skins 
when  he  was  not  in  New  York,  and  who,  in  his  usual 
pursuits,  carried  his  life  (as  well  as  that  of  other 
people)  in  his  hand.  A  gentleman  whom  she  had 
sat  next  to  at  dinner  in  the  early  part  of  her  stay  in 
New  York,  remarked  to  her  that  the  United  States 
were  the  paradise  of  women  and  mechanics ;  and  this 
had  seemed  to  her  at  the  time  very  abstract,  for  she 
was  not  conscious,  as  yet,  of  belonging  to  either  class. 
In  England  she  had  been  only  a  girl ;  and  the  princi- 
pal idea  connected  with  that  was  simply  that,  for 
one's  misfortune,  one  was  not  a  boy.  But  presently 
she  perceived  that  New  York  was  a  paradise ;  and  this 
helped  her  to  know  that  she  must  be  one  of  the  peo- 
ple mentioned  in  the  axiom  of  her  neighbor  —  people 
who  could  do  whatever  they  wanted,  had  a  voice  in 
everything,  and  made  their  taste  and  their  ideas  felt. 
She  saw  that  it  was  great  fun  to  be  a  woman  in 


LADY  BARBERINA.  225 

America,  and  that  that  was  the  best  way  to  enjoy 
the  New  York  winter,  —  the  wonderful,  brilliant  New 
York  winter,  the  queer,  long-shaped,  glittering  city, 
the  heterogeneous  hours,  among  which  you  could  n't 
tell  the  morning  from  the  afternoon,  or  the  night 
from  either  of  them,  the  perpetual  liberties  and  walks, 
the  rushings-out  and  the  droppings-in,  the  intimacies, 
the  endearments,  the  comicalities,  the  sleigh-bells,  the 
cutters,  the  sunsets  on  the  snow,  the  ice-parties  in 
the  frosty  clearness,  the  bright,  hot,  velvety  houses, 
the  bouquets,  the  bonbons,  the  little  cakes,  the  big 
cakes,  the  irrepressible  inspirations  of  shopping,  the 
innumerable  luncheons  and  dinners  that  were  offered 
to  youth  and  innocence,  the  quantities  of  chatter  of 
quantities  of  girls,  the  perpetual  motion  of  the  Ger- 
man, the  suppers  at  restaurants  after  the  play,  the 
way  in  which  life  was  pervaded  by  Delmonico  and 
Delmonico  by  the  sense  that  though  one's  hunting 
was  lost,  and  this  so  different,  it  was  almost  as  good 
—  and  in  all,  through  all,  a  kind  of  suffusion  of 
bright,  loud,  friendly  sound,  which  was  very  local, 
but  very  human. 

Lady  Agatha  at  present  was  staying,  for  a  little 
change,  with  Mrs.  Lemon,  and  such  adventures  as 
that  were  part  of  the  pleasure  of  her  American  season. 
The  house  was  too  close;  but,  physically,  the  girl 
could  bear  anything,  and  it  was  all  she  had  to  com- 
plain of ;  for  Mrs.  Lemon,  as  we  know,  thought  her  a 
quaint  little  damsel,  and  had  none  of  those  old-world 
scruples  in  regard  to  spoiling  young  people  to  which 

15 


226  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Lady  Agatha  now  perceived  that  she  herself,  in  the 
past,  had  been  unduly  sacrificed.  In  her  own  way  — 
it  was  not  at  all  her  sister's  way  —  she  liked  to  be  of 
importance ;  and  this  was  assuredly  the  case  when 
she  saw  that  Mrs.  Lemon  had  apparently  nothing  in 
the  world  to  do  (after  spending  a  part  of  the  morning 
with  her  servants)  but  invent  little  distractions  (many 
of  them  of  the  edible  sort)  for  her  guest.  She  ap- 
peared to  have  certain  friends,  but  she  had  no  society 
to  speak  of,  and.  the  people  who  came  into  her  house 
came  principally  to  see  Lady  Agatha.  This,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  strikingly  the  case  with  Herman 
Longstraw.  The  whole  situation  gave  Lady  Agatha 
a  great  feeling  of  success,  —  success  of  a  new  and  un- 
expected kind.  Of  course,  in  England,  she  had  been 
born  successful,  in  a  manner,  in  coming  into  the 
world  in  one  of  the  most  beautiful  rooms  at  Pasterns  ; 
but  her  present  triumph  was  achieved  more  by  her 
own  effort  (not  that  she  had  tried  very  hard)  and  by 
her  merit.  It  was  not  so  much  what  she  said  (for 
she  could  never  say  half  as  much  as  the  girls  in  New 
York),  as  the  spirit  of  enjoyment  that  played  in  her 
fresh  young  face,  with  its  pointless  curves,  and  shone 
in  her  gray  English  eyes.  She  enjoyed  everything, 
even  the  street-cars,  of  which  she  made  liberal  use ; 
and  more  than  everything  she  enjoyed  Mr.  Long- 
straw  and  his  talk  about  buffaloes  and  bears.  Mrs. 
Lemon  promised  to  be  very  careful,  as  soon  as  her 
son  had  begun  to  warn  her ;  and  this  time  she  had 
a  certain  understanding  of  what  she  promised.  She 


LADY  BARBERINA.  227 

thought  people  ought  to  make  the  matches  they 
liked ;  she  had  given  proof  of  this  in  her  late  be- 
havior to  Jackson,  whose  own  union  was,  in  her 
opinion,  marked  with  all  the  arbitrariness  of  pure 
love.  Nevertheless,  she  could  see  that  Herman  Long- 
straw  would  probably  be  thought  rough  in  England ; 
and  it  was  not  simply  that  he  was  so  inferior  to 
Jackson,  for,  after  all,  certain  things  were  not  to  be 
expected.  Jackson  Lemon  was  not  oppressed  with 
his  mother-in-law,  having  taken  his  precautions 
against  such  a  danger ;  but  he  was  aware  that  he  should 
give  Lady  Canterville  a  permanent  advantage  over 
him  if  while  she  was  in  America,  her  daughter 
Agatha  should  attach  herself  to  a  mere  mustache. 

It  was  not  always,  as  I  have  hinted,  that  Mrs, 
Lemon  entered  completely  into  the  views  of  her  son, 
though  in  form  she  never  failed  to  subscribe  to  them 
devoutly.  She  had  never  yet,  for  instance,  appre- 
hended his  reason  for  marrying  Lady  Barberina 
Clement.  This  was  a  great  secret,  and  Mrs.  Lemon 
was  determined  that  no  one  should  ever  know  it. 
For  herself,  she  was  sure  that,  to  the  end  of  time,  she 
should  not  discover  Jackson's  reason.  She  could 
never  ask  about  it,  for  that,  of  course,  would  betray 
her.  From  the  first  she  had  told  him  she  was  de- 
lighted ;  there  being  no  need  of  asking  for  explana- 
tions then,  as  the  young  lady  herself  when  she  should 
come  to  know  her,  would  explain.  But  the  young 
lady  had  not  yet  explained ;  and  after  this,  evidently, 
she  never  would.  She  was  very  tall,  very  handsome, 


228  LADY  BARBER1NA. 

she  answered  exactly  to  Mrs.  Lemon's  prefigurement 
of  the  daughter  of  a  lord,  and  she  wore  her  clothes, 
which  were  peculiar,  but,  to  her,  remarkably  becom- 
ing, very  well.  But  she  did  not  elucidate ;  we  know 
ourselves  that  there  was  very  little  that  was  explana- 
tory about  Lady  Barb.  So  Mrs.  Lemon  continued  to 
wonder,  to  ask  herself,  "  Why  that  one,  more  than  so 
many  others,  who  would  have  been  more  natural  ? " 
The  choice  appeared  to  her,  as  I  have  said,  very 
arbitrary.  She  found  Lady  Barb  very  different  from 
other  girls  she  had  known,  and  this  led  her  almost 
immediately  to  feel  sorry  for  her  daughter-in-law. 
She  said  to  herself  that  Barb  was  to  be  pitied  if  she 
found  her  husband's  people  as  peculiar  as  his  mother 
found  her ;  for  the  result  of  that  would  be  to  make 
her  very  lonesome.  Lady  Agatha  was  different,  be- 
cause she  seemed  to  keep  nothing  back ;  you  saw  all 
there  was  of  her,  and  she  was  evidently  not  home- 
sick. Mrs.  Lemon  could  see  that  Barberina  was  rav- 
aged by  this  last  passion,  and  that  she  was  too  proud 
to  show  it.  She  even  had  a  glimpse  of  the  ultimate 
truth ;  namely,  that  Jackson's  wife  had  not  the  com- 
fort of  crying,  because  that  would  have  amounted  to 
a  confession  that  she  had  been  idiotic  enough  to 
believe  in  advance  that,  in  an  American  town,  in  the 
society  of  doctors,  she  should  escape  such  pangs. 
Mrs.  Lemon  treated  her  with  the  greatest  gentleness, 
—  all  the  gentleness  that  was  due  to  a  young  woman 
who  was  in  the  unfortunate  position  of  having  been 
married  one  could  n't  tell  why.  The  world,  to  Mrs. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  229 

Lemon's  view,  contained  two  great  departments, — 
that  of  people,  and  that  of  things ;  and  she  believed 
that  you  must  take  an  interest  either  in  one  or  the 
other.  The  incomprehensible  thing  in  Lady  Barb 
was  that  she  cared  for  neither  side  of  the  show.  Her 
house  apparently  inspired  her  with  no  curiosity  and  no 
enthusiasm,  though  it  had  been  thought  magnificent 
enough  to  be  described  in  successive  columns  of  the 
American  newspapers;  and  she  never  spoke  of  her 
furniture  or  her  domestics,  though  she  had  a  prodi- 
gious quantity  of  such  possessions.  She  was  the  same 
with  regard  to  her  acquaintance,  which  was  immense, 
inasmuch  as  every  one  in  the  place  had  called  on  her. 
Mrs.  Lemon  was  the  least  critical  woman  in  the 
world ;  but  it  had  sometimes  exasperated  her  just  a 
little  that  her  daughter-in-law  should  receive  every 
one  in  New  York  in  exactly  the  same  way.  There 
were  differences,  Mrs.  Lemon  knew,  and  some  of  them 
were  of  the  highest  importance ;  but  poor  Lady  Barb 
appeared  never  to  suspect  them.  She  accepted  every 
one  and  everything,  and  asked  no  questions.  She 
had  no  curiosity  about  her  fellow  citizens,  and  as 
she  never  assumed  it  for  a  moment,  she  gave  Mrs. 
Lemon  no  opportunity  to  enlighten  her.  Lady  Barb 
was  a  person  with  whom  you  could  do  nothing  unless 
she  gave  you  an  opening ;  and  nothing  would  have 
been  more  difficult  than  to  enlighten  her  against  her 
will.  Of  course  she  picked  up  a  little  knowledge; 
but  she  confounded  and  transposed  American  attri- 
butes in  the  most  extraordinary  way.  She  had  a 


230  LADY  BARBERINA. 

way  of  calling  every  one  Doctor;  and  Mrs.  Lemon 
could  scarcely  convince  her  that  this  distinction  was 
too  precious  to  be  so  freely  bestowed.  She  had  once 
said  to  her  mother-in-law  that  in  New  York  there 
was  nothing  to  know  people  by,  their  names  were 
so  very  monotonous;  and  Mrs.  Lemon  had  entered 
into  this  enough  to  see  that  there  was  something  that 
stood  out  a  good  deal  in  Barberina's  own  prefix.  It 
is  probable  that  during  her  short  stay  in  New  York 
complete  justice  was  not  done  Lady  Barb ;  she  never 
got  credit,  for  instance,  for  repressing  her  annoyance 
at  the  aridity  of  the  social  nomenclature,  which 
seemed  to  her  hideous.  That  little  speech  to  her 
mother  was  the  most  reckless  sign  she  gave  of  it ; 
and  there  were  few  things  that  contributed  more  to 
the  good  conscience  she  habitually  enjoyed,  than  her 
self-control  on  this  particular  point. 

Jackson  Lemon  was  making  some  researches,  just 
now,  which  took  up  a  great  deal  of  his  time ;  and,  for 
the  rest,  he  passed  his  hours  abundantly  with  his 
wife.  For  the  last  three  months,  therefore,  he  had 
seen  his  mother  scarcely  more  than  once  a  week.  In 
spite  of  researches,  in  spite  of  medical  societies, 
where  Jackson,  to  her  knowledge,  read  papers,  Lady 
Barb  had  more  of  her  husband's  company  than  she 
had  counted  upon  at  the  time  she  married.  She  had 
never  known  a  married  pair  to  be  so  much  together 
as  she  and  Jackson ;  he  appeared  to  expect  her  to  sit 
with  him  in  the  library  in  the  morning.  He  had 
none  of  the  occupations  of  gentlemen  and  noblemen 


LADY  BARBERINA.  231 

in  England,  for  the  element  of  politics  appeared  to 
be  as  absent  as  tbe  hunting.  There  were  politics  in 
Washington,  she  had  been  told,  and  even  at  Albany, 
and  Jackson  had  proposed  to  introduce  her  to  these 
cities ;  but  the  proposal,  made  to  her  once  at  dinner 
before  several  people,  had  excited  such  cries  of  horror 
that  it  fell  dead  on  the  spot.  "  We  don't  want  you 
to  see  anything  of  that  kind,"  one  of  the  ladies  had 
said,  and  Jackson  had  appeared  to  be  discouraged,  — 
that  is  if,  in  regard  to  Jackson,  she  could  really  tell. 

u  Pray,  what  is  it  you  want  me  to  see  ? "  Lady 
Barb  had  asked  on  this  occasion. 

"Well,  New  York;  and  Boston,  if  you  want  to 
very  much  —  but  not  otherwise  ;  and  Niagara ;  and, 
more  than  anything,  Newport." 

Lady  Barb  was  tired  of  their  eternal  Newport ;  she 
had  heard  of  it  a  thousand  times,  and  felt  already  as 
if  she  had  lived  there  half  her  life ;  she  was  sure, 
moreover,  that  she  should  hate  it.  This  is  perhaps 
as  near  as  she  came  to  having  a  lively  conviction  on 
any  American  subject.  She  asked  herself  whether 
she  was  then  to  spend  her  life  in  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
with  alternations  of  a  city  of  villas  (she  detested 
villas),  and  wondered  whether  that  was  all  the  great 
American  country  had  to  offer  her.  There  were  times 
when  she  thought  that  she  should  like  the  back- 
woods, and  that  the  Far  West  might  be  a  resource  ; 
for  she  had  analyzed  her  feelings  just  deep  enough 
to  discover  that  when  she  had  —  hesitating  a  good 
deal  —  turned  over  the  question  of  marrying  Jackson 


232  LADY  BARBERINA. 

Lemon,  it  was  not  in  the  least  of  American  barbarism 
that  she  was  afraid ;  her  dread  was  of  American  civ- 
ilization. She  believed  the  little  lady  I  have  just 
quoted  was  a  goose;  but  that  did  not  make  New 
York  any  more  interesting.  It  would  be  reckless  to 
say  that  she  suffered  from  an  overdose  of  Jackson's 
company,  because  she  had  a  view  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  much  her  most  important  social  resource.  She 
could  talk  to  him  about  England;  about  her  own 
England,  and  he  understood  more  or  less  what  she 
wished  to  say,  when  she  wished  to  say  anything, 
which  was  not  frequent.  There  were  plenty  of  other 
people  who  talked  about  England  ;  but  with  them  the 
range  of  allusion  was  always  the  hotels,  of  which  she 
knew  nothing,  and  the  shops,  and  the  opera,  and  the 
photographs  :  they  had  a  mania  for  photographs. 
There  were  other  people  who  were  always  wanting 
her  to  tell  them  about  Pasterns,  and  the  manner  of 
life  there,  and  the  parties ;  but  if  there  was  one 
thing*  Lady  Barb  disliked  more  than  another,  it  was 
describing  Pasterns.  She  had  always  lived  with 
people  who  knew,  of  themselves,  what  such  a  place 
would  be,  without  demanding  these  pictorial  efforts, 
proper  only,  as  she  vaguely  felt,  to  persons  belonging 
to  the  classes  whose  trade  was  the  arts  of  expression. 
Lady  Barb,  of  course,  had  never  gone  into  it ;  but  she 
knew  that  in  her  own  class  the  business  was  not  to 
express,  but  to  enjoy;  not  to  represent,  but  to  be 
represented,  —  though,  indeed,  this  latter  liability 
might  convey  offence ;  for  it  may  be  noted  that  even 


LADY  BARBERINA.  233 

for  an  aristocrat  Jackson  Lemon's  wife  was  aristo- 
cratic. 

Lady  Agatha  and  her  visitor  came  back  from  the 
library  in  course  of  time,  and  Jackson  Lemon  felt  it 
his  duty  to  be  rather  cold  to  Herman  Longstraw.  It 
was  not  clear  to  him  what  sort  of  a  husband  his  sis- 
ter-in-law would  do  well  to  look  for  in  America,  —  if 
there  were  to  be  any  question  of  husbands ;  but  as 
to  this  he  was  not  bound  to  be  definite,  provided  he 
should  rule  out  Mr.  Longstraw.  This  gentleman, 
however,  was  not  given  to  perceive  shades  of  man- 
ner ;  he  had  little  observation,  but  very  great  con- 
fidence. 

"I  think  you  had  better  come  home  with  me," 
Jackson  said  to  Lady  Agatha ;  "  I  guess  you  have 
stayed  here  long  enough." 

"  Don't  let  him  say  that,  Mrs.  Lemon  ! "  the  girl 
cried.  "  I  like  being  with  you  so  very  much/' 

"  I  try  to  make  it  pleasant,"  said  Mrs.  Lemon. 
"  I  should  really  miss  you  now ;  but  perhaps  it 's 
your  mother's  wish."  If  it  was  a  question  of  defend- 
ing her  guest  from  ineligible  suitors,  Mrs.  Lemon  felt, 
of  course,  that  her  son  was  more  competent  than  she  ; 
though  she  had  a  lurking  kindness  for  Herman  Long- 
straw,  and  a  vague  idea  that  he  was  a  gallant,  genial 
specimen  of  young  America. 

"  Oh,  mamma  would  n't  see  any  difference  ! "  Lady 
Agatha  exclaimed,  looking  at  Jackson  with  pleading 
blue  eyes.  "  Mamma  wants  me  to  see  eveiy  one ; 
you  know  she  does.  That's  what  she  sent  me  to 


234  LADY  BARBERINA. 

America  for ;  she  knew  it  was  not  like  England. 
She  would  n't  like  it  if  I  did  n't  sometimes  stay 
with  people ;  she  always  wanted  us  to  stay  at  other 
houses.  And  she  knows  all  about  you,  Mrs.  Lemon, 
and  she  likes  you  immensely.  She  sent  you  a  mes- 
sage the  other  day,  and  I  am  afraid  I  forgot  to  give 
it  you,  —  to  thank  you  for  being  so  kind  to  me  and 
taking  such  a  lot  of  trouble.  Eeally  she  did,  but  I 
forgot  it.  If  she  wants  me  to  see  as  much  as  pos- 
sible of  America,  it 's  much  better  I  should  be  here 
than  always  with  Barb,  —  it 's  much  less  like  one's 
own  country.  I  mean  it 's  much  nicer  —  for  a  girl," 
said  Lady  Agatha,  affectionately,  to  Mrs.  Lemon,  who 
began  also  to  look  at  Jackson  with  a  kind  of  tender 
argumentativeness. 

"  If  you  want  the  genuine  thing,  you  ought  to  come 
out  on  the  plains,"  Mr.  Longs traw  interposed,  with 
smiling  sincerity.  "  I  guess  that  was  your  mother's 
idea.  Why  don't  you  all  come  out  ? "  He  had  been 
looking  intently  at  Lady  Agatha  while  the  remarks 
I  have  just  repeated  succeeded  each  other  on  her 
lips,  —  looking  at  her  with  a  kind  of  fascinated  appro- 
bation, for  all  the  world  as  if  he  had  been  a  slightly 
slow-witted  English  gentleman,  and  the  girl  had  been 
a  flower  of  the  West, —  a  flower  that  knew  how  to  talk. 
He  made  no  secret  of  the  fact  that  Lady  Agatha's 
voice  was  music  to  him,  his  ear  being  much  more 
susceptible  than  his  own  inflections  would  have  indi- 
cated. To  Lady  Agatha  those  inflections  were  not 
displeasing,  partly  because,  like  Mr.  Herman  him- 


LADY  BARBERINA.  235 

self,  in  general,  she  bad  not  a  perception  of  shades  ; 
and  partly  because  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  com- 
pare them  with  any  other  tones.  He  seemed  to  her 
to  speak  a  foreign  language  altogether,  —  a  romantic 
dialect,  through  which  the  most  comical  meanings 
gleamed  here  and  there. 

"  I  should  like  it  above  all  things,"  she  said,  in  an- 
swer to  his  last  observation. 

"The  scenery's  superior  to  anything  round  here," 
Mr.  Longstraw  went  on. 

Mrs.  Lemon,  as  we  know,  was  the  softest  of  women ; 
but,  as  an  old  New  Yorker,  she  had  no  patience  with 
some  of  the  new  fashions.  Chief  among  these  was 
the  perpetual  reference,  which  had  become  common 
only  within  a  few  years,  to  the  outlying  parts  of  the 
country,  the  States  and  Territories  of  which  children, 
in  her  time,  used  to  learn  the  names,  in  their  order, 
at  school,  but  which  no  one  ever  thought  of  going  to 
or  talking  about.  Such  places,  in  Mrs.  Lemon's  opin- 
ion, belonged  to  the  geography-books,  or  at  most  to 
the  literature  of  newspapers,  but  not  to  society 
nor  to  conversation ;  and  the  change  —  which,  so 
far  as  it  lay  in  people's  talk,  she  thought  at  bottom 
a  mere  affectation  —  threatened  to  make  her  native 
land  appear  vulgar  and  vague.  For  this  amiable 
daughter  of  Manhattan,  the  normal  existence  of  man, 
and,  still  more,  of  woman,  had  been  "  located,"  as  she 
would  have  said,  between  Trinity  Church  and  the 
beautiful  Reservoir  at  the  top  of  the  Fifth  Avenue, 
—  monuments  of  which  she  was  personally  proud ; 


236  LADY  BARBERINA. 

and  if  we  could  look  into  the  deeper  parts  of  her 
mind,  I  am  afraid  we  should  discover  there  an  im- 
pression that  both  the  countries  of  Europe  and  the 
remainder  of  her  own  continent  were  equally  far  from 
the  centre  and  the  light. 

"Well,  scenery  isn't  everything,"  she  remarked, 
mildly,  to  Mr.  Longstraw ;  "  and  if  Lady  Agatha 
should  wish  to  see  anything  of  that  kind,  all  she  has 
got  to  do  is  to  take  the  boat  up  the  Hudson." 

Mrs.  Lemon's  recognition  of  this  river,  I  should 
say,  was  all  that  it  need  have  been;  she  thought 
that  it  existed  for  the  purpose  of  supplying  New 
Yorkers  with  poetical  feelings,  helping  them  to  face 
comfortably  occasions  like  the  present,  and,  in  gen- 
eral, meet  foreigners  with  confidence,  —  part  of  the 
oddity  of  foreigners  being  their  conceit  about  their 
own  places. 

"  That 's  a  good  idea,  Lady  Agatha ;  let 's  take  the 
boat,"  said  Mr.  Longstraw.  "  I  've  had  great  times  on 
the  boats." 

Lady  Agatha  looked  at  her  cavalier  a  little  with 
those  singular,  charming  eyes  of  hers,  —  eyes  of 
which  it  was  impossible  to  say,  at  any  moment, 
whether  they  were  the  shyest  or  the  frankest  in 
the  world ;  and  she  was  not  aware,  while  this  con- 
templation lasted,  that  her  brother-in-law  was  ob- 
serving her.  He  was  thinking  of  certain  things  while 
he  did  so,  of  things  he  had  heard  about  the  English ; 
who  still,  in  spite  of  his  having  married  into  a  family 
of  that  nation,  appeared  to  him  very  much  through 


LADY  BARBERINA.  237 

the  medium  of  hearsay.  They  were  more  passionate 
than  the  Americans,  and  they  did  things  that  would 
never  have  been  expected ;  though  they  seemed 
steadier  and  less  excitable,  there  was  much  social 
evidence  to  show  that  they  were  more  impulsive. 

"  It 's  so  very  kind  of  you  to  propose  that,"  Lady 
Agatha  said  in  a  moment  to  Mrs.  Lemon.  "  I  think 
I  have  never  been  in  a  ship,  —  except,  of  course,  com- 
ing from  England.  I  am  sure  mamma  would  wish  me 
to  see  the  Hudson.  We  used  to  go  in  immensely  for 
boating  in  England." 

"  Did  you  boat  in  a  ship  ? "  Herman  Longstraw 
asked,  showing  his  teeth  hilariously,  and  pulling  his 
mustaches. 

"Lots  of  my  mother's  people  have  been  in  the 
navy."  Lady  Agatha  perceived  vaguely  and  good- 
naturedly  that  she  had  said  something  which  the 
odd  Americans  thought  odd,  and  that  she  must  just- 
ify herself.  Her  standard  of  oddity  was  getting 
dreadfully  dislocated. 

"  I  really  think  you  had  better  come  back  to  us," 
said  Jackson;  "your  sister  is  very  lonely  without 
you." 

"  She  is  much  more  lonely  with  me.  We  are  per- 
petually having  differences.  Barb  is  dreadfully  vexed 
because  I  like  America,  instead  of — instead  of — " 
And  Lady  Agatha  paused  a  moment;  for  it  just 
occurred  to  her  that  this  might  be  a  betrayal. 

"  Instead  of  what  ? "     Jackson  Lemon  inquired. 

"  Instead  of  perpetually  wanting  to  go  to  England, 


238  LADY  BARBERINA. 

as  she  does,"  she  went  on,  only  giving  her  phrase  a 
little  softer  turn ;  for  she  felt  the  next  moment  that 
her  sister  could  have  nothing  to  hide,  and  must,  of 
course,  have  the  courage  of  her  opinions.  "  Of  course 
England 's  best,  but  I  dare  say  I  like  to  be  bad,"  said 
Lady  Agatha,  artlessly. 

"  Oh,  there 's  no  doubt  you  are  awfully  bad,"  Mr. 
Longstraw  exclaimed,  with  joyous  eagerness.  Of 
course  he  could  not  know  that  what  she  had  prin- 
cipally in  mind  was  an  exchange  of  opinions  that 
had  taken  place  between  her  sister  and  herself  just 
before  she  came  to  stay  with  Mrs.  Lemon.  This  inci- 
dent, of  which  Longstraw  was  the  occasion,  might 
indeed  have  been  called  a  discussion,  for  it  had  car- 
ried them  quite  into  the  realms  of  the  abstract. 
Lady  Barb  had  said  she  did  n't  see  how  Agatha  could 
look  at  such  a  creature  as  that,  —  an  odious,  familiar, 
vulgar  being,  who  had  not  about  him  the  rudiments 
of  a  gentleman.  Lady  Agatha  had  replied  that  Mr. 
Longstraw  was  familiar  and  rough,  and  that  he  had 
a  twang,  and  thought  it  amusing  to  talk  of  her  as 
"the  Princess;"  but  that  he  was  a  gentleman  for  all 
that,  and  that  at  any  rate  he  was  tremendous  fun.  Her 
sister  to  this  had  rejoined  that  if  he  was  rough  and 
familiar  he  couldn't  be  a  gentleman,  inasmuch  as  that 
was  just  what  a  gentleman  meant,  —  a  man  who  was 
civil,  and  well-bred,  and  well-born.  Lady  Agatha 
had  argued  that  this  was  just  where  she  differed ;  that 
a  man  might  perfectly  be  a  gentleman,  and  yet  be 
rough,  and  even  ignorant,  so  long  as  he  was  really 


LADY  BARBEP1NA.  239 

nice.  The  only  thing  was  that  he  should  be  really 
nice,  which  was  the  case  with  Mr.  Longstraw,  who, 
moreover,  was  quite  extraordinarily  civil  —  as  civil  as 
a  man  could  be.  And  then  Lady  Agatha  made  the 
strongest  poiot  she  had  ever  made  in  her  life,  she  had 
never  been  so  inspired,  in  saying  that  Mr.  Longstraw 
was  rough,  perhaps,  but  not  rude,  —  a  distinction  alto- 
gether wasted  on  her  sister,  who  declared  that  she 
had  not  come  to  America,  of  all  places,  to  learn  what 
a  gentleman  was.  The  discussion,  in  short,  had  been 
lively.  I  know  not  whether  it  was  the  tonic  effect  on 
them,  too,  of  the  fine  winter  weather,  or,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  of  Lady  Barb's  being  bored  and  having 
nothing  else  to  do ;  but  Lord  Canterville's  daughters 
went  into  the  question  with  the  moral  earnestness  of 
a  pair  of  Bostonians.  It  was  part  of  Lady  Agatha's 
view  of  her  admirer  that  he,  after  all,  much  resembled 
other  tall  people,  with  smiling  eyes  and  mustaches, 
who  had  ridden  a  good  deal  in  rough  countries,  and 
whom  she  had  seen  in  other  places.  If  he  was  more 
familiar,  he  was  also  more  alert ;  still,  the  difference 
was  not  in  himself,  but  in  the  way  she  saw  him,  — the 
way  she  saw  everybody  in  America.  If  she  should 
see  the  others  in  the  same  way,  no  doubt  they  would 
be  quite  the  same ;  and  Lady  Agatha  sighed  a  little 
over  the  possibilities  of  life ;  for  this  peculiar  way,  es- 
pecially regarded  in  connection  with  gentlemen,  had 
become  very  pleasant  to  her. 

She  had  betrayed  her  sister  more  than  she  thought, 
even  though  Jackson  Lemon  did  not  particularly 
show  it  in  the  tone  in  which  he  said :  "  Of  course 


240  LADY  BARBERINA. 

she  knows  that  she  is  going  to  see  your  mother  in  the 
summer."  His  tone,  rather,  was  that  of  irritation  at 
the  repetition  of  a  familiar  idea. 

"  Oh,  it  is  n't  only  mamma,"  replied  Lady  Agatha. 

"  I  know  she  likes  a  cool  house,"  said  Mrs.  Lemon, 
suggestively. 

"  When  she  goes,  you  had  better  bid  her  good-by," 
the  girl  went  on. 

"Of  course  I  shall  bid  her  good-by,"  said  Mrs. 
Lemon,  to  whom,  apparently,  this  remark  was  ad- 
dressed. 

"  I  shall  never  bid  you  good-by,  Princess,"  Her- 
man Longstraw  interposed.  "  I  can  tell  you  that 
you  never  will  see  the  last  of  me." 

"  Oh,  it  does  n't  matter  about  me,  for  I  shall  come 
back;  but  if  Barb  once  gets  to  England,  she  will 
never  come  back." 

"  Oh,  niy  dear  child,"  murmured  Mrs.  Lemon,  ad- 
dressing Lady  Agatha,  but  looking  at  her  son. 

Jackson  looked  at  the  ceiling,  at  the  floor ;  above 
all,  he  looked  very  conscious. 

"  I  hope  you  don't  mind  my  saying  that,  Jackson 
dear,"  Lady  Agatha  said  to  him,  for  she  was  very 
fond  of  her  brother-in-law. 

"  Ah,  well,  then,  she  sha'n't  go,  then,"  he  remarked, 
after  a  moment,  with  a  dry  little  laugh. 

"  But  you  promised  mamma,  you  know/'  said  the 
girl,  with  the  confidence  of  her  affection. 

Jackson  looked  at  her  with  an  eye  which  expressed 
none  even  of  his  very  moderate  hilarity.  "Your 
mother,  then,  must  bring  her  back." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  241 

"  Get  some  of  your  navy  people  to  supply  an  iron- 
clad ! "  cried  Mr.  Longstraw. 

"It  would  be  very  pleasant  if  the  Marchioness 
could  come  over,"  said  Mrs.  Lemon. 

"Oh,  she  would  hate  it  more  than  poor  Barb," 
Lady  Agatha  quickly  replied.  It  did  not  suit  her 
mood  at  all  to  see  a  marchioness  inserted  into  the 
field  of  her  vision. 

"  Does  n't  she  feel  interested,  from  what  you  have 
told  her  ? "  Herman  Longstraw  asked  of  Lady  Agatha. 
But  Jackson  Lemon  did  not  heed  his  sister-in-law's 
answer ;  he  was  thinking  of  something  else.  He 
said  nothing  more,  however,  about  the  subject  of  his 
thought,  and  before  ten  minutes  were  over,  he  took 
his  departure,  having,  meanwhile,  neglected  also  to 
revert  to  the  question  of  Lady  Agatha's  bringing  her 
visit  to  his  mother  to  a  close.  It  was  not  to  speak 
to  him  of  this  (for,  as  we  know,  she  wished  to  keep 
the  girl,  and,  somehow,  could  not  bring  herself  to  be 
afraid  of  Herman  Longstraw)  that  when  Jackson 
took  leave  she  went  with  him  to  the  door  of  the 
house,  detaining  him  a  little,  while  she  stood  on  the 
steps,  as  people  had  always  done  in  New  York  in  her 
time,  though  it  was  another  of  the  new  fashions  she 
did  not  like,  not  to  come  out  of  the  parlor.  She 
placed  her  hand  on  his  arm  to  keep  him  on  the 
"  stoop,"  and  looked  up  and  down  into  the  brilliant 
afternoon  and  the  beautiful  city,  —  its  chocolate- 
colored  houses,  so  extraordinarily  smooth,  —  in  which 
it  seemed  to  her  that  even  the  most  fastidious  people 

16 


242  LADY  BARBERINA. 

ought  to  be  glad  to  live.  It  was  useless  to  attempt 
to  conceal  it;  her  son's  marriage  had  made  a  dif- 
ference, had  put  up  a  kind  of  barrier.  It  had 
brought  with  it  a  problem  much  more  difficult  than 
his  old  problem  of  how  to  make  his  mother  feel  that 
she  was  still,  as  she  had  been  in  his  childhood,  the 
dispenser  of  his  rewards.  The  old  problem  had  been 
easily  solved ;  the  new  one  was  a  visible  preoccupa- 
tion. Mrs.  Lemon  felt  that  her  daughter-in-law  did 
not  take  her  seriously ;  and  that  was  a  part  of  the 
barrier.  Even  if  Barberina  liked  her  better  than  any 
one  else,  this  was  mostly  because  she  liked  every  one 
else  so  little.  Mrs.  Lemon  had  not  a  grain  of  resent- 
ment in  her  nature ;  and  it  was  not  to  feed  a  sense  of 
wrong  that  she  permitted  herself  to  criticise  her  son's 
wife.  She  could  not  help  feeling  that  his  marriage 
was  not  altogether  fortunate  if  his  wife  did  n't  take 
his  mother  seriously.  She  knew  she  was  not  other- 
wise remarkable  than  as  being  his  mother ;  but  that 
position,  which  was  no  merit  of  hers  (the  merit  was 
all  Jackson's,  in  being  her  son),  seemed  to  her  one 
which,  familiar  as  Lady  Barb  appeared  to  have  been 
in  England  with  positions  of  various  kinds,  would 
naturally  strike  the  girl  as  a  very  high  one,  to  be  ac- 
cepted as  freely  as  a  fine  morning.  If  she  didn't 
think  of  his  mother  as  an  indivisible  part  of  him, 
perhaps  she  did  n't  think  of  other  things  either  ;  and 
Mrs.  Lemon  vaguely  felt  that,  remarkable  as  Jackson 
was,  he  was  made  up  of  parts,  and  that  it  would 
never  do  that  these  parts  should  be  rated  lower  one 


LADY  BARBERINA.  243 

by  one,  for  there  was  no  knowing  what  that  might 
end  in.  She  feared  that  things  were  rather  cold  for 
him  at  home  when  he  had  to  explain  so  much  to  his 
wife,  —  explain  to  her,  for  instance,  all  the  sources  of 
happiness  that  were  to  be  found  in  New  York.  This 
struck  her  as  a  new  kind  of  problem  altogether  for 
a  husband.  She  had  never  thought  of  matrimony 
without  a  community  of  feeling  in  regard  to  religion 
and  country;  one  took  those  great  conditions  for 
granted,  just  as  one  assumed  that  one's  food  was  to 
be  cooked;  and  if  Jackson  should  have  to  discuss 
them  with  his  wife,  he  might,  in  spite  of  his  great 
abilities,  be  carried  into  regions  where  he  would  get 
entangled  and  embroiled, — from  which,  even,  possibly, 
he  would  not  come  back  at  all  Mrs.  Lemon  had  a 
horror  of  losing  him  in  some  way ;  and  this  fear  was 
in  her  eyes  as  she  stood  on  the  steps  of  her  house, 
and,  after  she  had  glanced  up  and  down  the  street, 
looked  at  him  a  moment  in  silence.  He  simply 
kissed  her  again,  and  said  she  would  take  cold. 

"  I  am  not  afraid  of  that,  I  have  a  shawl ! "  Mrs. 
Lemon,  who  was  very  small  and  very  fair,  with 
pointed  features  and  an  elaborate  cap,  passed  her  life 
in  a  shawl,  and  owed  to  this  habit  her  reputation  for  be- 
ing an  invalid,  —  an  idea  which  she  scorned,  naturally 
enough,  inasmuch  as  it  was  precisely  her  shawl  that 
(as  she  believed)  kept  her  from  being  one.  "  Is  it  true 
Barberina  won't  come  back  ?  "  she  asked  of  her  son. 

"  I  don't  know  that  we  shall  ever  find  out ;  I  don't 
know  that  I  shall  take  her  to  England." 


244  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  Did  n't  you  promise,  dear  ? " 

"  I  don't  know  that  I  promised ;  not  absolutely." 

"  But  you  would  n't  keep  her  here  against  her 
will  ? "  said  Mrs.  Lemon,  inconsequently. 

"  I  guess  she  '11  get  used  to  it,"  Jackson  answered, 
with  a  lightness  he  did  not  altogether  feel. 

Mrs.  Lemon  looked  up  and  down  the  street  again, 
and  gave  a  little  sigh.  "  What  a  pity  she  is  n't  Amer- 
ican ! "  She  did  not  mean  this  as  a  reproach,  a  hint 
of  what  might  have  been ;  it  was  simply  embarrass- 
ment resolved  into  speech. 

"  She  could  n't  have  been  American,"  said  Jackson, 
with  decision. 

"  Could  n't  she,  dear  ? "  Mrs.  Lemon  spoke  with 
a  kind  of  respect;  she  felt  that  there  were  imper- 
ceptible reasons  in  this. 

"It  was  just  as  she  is  that  I  wanted  her,"  Jackson 
added. 

"Even  if  she  won't  come  back?"  his  mother  asked, 
with  a  certain  wonder. 

"  Oh,  she  has  got  to  come  back ! "  Jackson  said, 
going  down  the  steps. 


VI. 


LADY  BARB,  after  this,  did  not  decline  to  see  her 
New  York  acquaintances  on  Sunday  afternoons,  though 
she  refused  for  the  present  to  enter  into  a  project  of 
her  husband's,  who  thought  it  would  be  a  pleasant 
thing  that  she  should  entertain  his  friends  on  the 


LADY  BARBERINA.  245 

evening  of  that  day.  Like  all  good  Americans,  Jack- 
son Lemon  devoted  much  consideration  to  the  great 
question  how,  in  his  native  land,  society  should  be 
brought  into  being.  It  seemed  to  him  that  it  would 
help  the  good  cause,  for  which  so  many  Americans 
are  ready  to  lay  down  their  lives,  if  his  wife  should, 
as  he  jocularly  called  it,  open  a  saloon.  He  believed, 
or  he  tried  to  believe,  the  salon  now  possible  in  New 
York,  on  condition  of  its  being  reserved  entirely  for 
adults;  and  in  having  taken  a  wife  out  of  a  country 
in  which  social  traditions  were  rich  and  ancient,  he 
had  done  something  towards  qualifying  his  own 
house  —  so  splendidly  qualified  in  all  strictly  mate- 
rial respects  —  to  be  the  scene  of  such  an  effort.  A 
charming  woman,  accustomed  only  to  the  best  in  each 
country,  as  Lady  Beauchemin  said,  what  might  she 
not  achieve  by  being  at  home  (to  the  elder  gen- 
eration) in  an  easy,  early,  inspiring,  comprehensive 
way,  on  the  evening  in  the  week  on  which  worldly 
engagements  were  least  numerous  ?  He  laid  this 
philosophy  before  Lady  Barb,  in  pursuance  of  a  the- 
ory that  if  she  disliked  New  York  on  a  short  acquain- 
tance, she  could  not  fail  to  like  it  on  a  long  one. 
Jackson  Lemon  believed  in  the  New  York  mind,  — 
not  so  much,  indeed,  in  its  literary,  artistic,  or  politi- 
cal achievements,  as  in  its  general  quickness  and 
nascent  adaptability.  He  clung  to  this  belief,  for  it 
was  a  very  important  piece  of  material  in  the  struc- 
ture that  he  was  attempting  to  rear.  The  New  York 
mind  would  throw  its  glamour  over  Lady  Barb  if  she 


246  LADY  BARBERINA. 

would  only  give  it  a  chance ;  for  it  was  exceedingly 
bright,  entertaining,  and  sympathetic.  If  she  would 
only  have  a  salon,  where  this  charming  organ  might 
expand,  and  where  she  might  inhale  its  fragrance  in 
the  most  convenient  and  luxurious  way,  without,  as 
it  were,  getting  up  from  her  chair ;  if  she  would  only 
just  try  this  graceful,  good-natured  experiment  (which 
would  make  every  one  like  her  so  much,  too),  —  he 
was  sure  that  all  the  wrinkles  in  the  gilded  scroll  of 
his  fate  would  be  smoothed  out.  But  Lady  Barb  did 
not  rise  at  all  to  his  conception,  and  had  not  the  least 
curiosity  about  the  New  York  mind.  She  thought  it 
would  be  extremely  disagreeable  to  have  a  lot  of  peo- 
ple tumbling  in  on  Sunday  evening  without  being 
invited ;  and  altogether  her  husband's  sketch  of  the 
Anglo-American  saloon  seemed  to  her  to  suggest 
familiarity,  high-pitched  talk  (she  had  already  made 
a  remark  to  him  about  "  screeching  women " ),  and 
exaggerated  laughter.  She  did  not  tell  him  —  for  this, 
somehow,  it  was  not  in  her  power  to  express,  and, 
strangely  enough,  he  never  completely  guessed  it,  — 
that  she  was  singularly  deficient  in  any  natural,  or 
indeed  acquired,  understanding  of  what  a  saloon 
might  be.  She  had  never  seen  one,  and  for  the  most 
part  she  never  thought  of  things  she  had  not  seen. 
She  had  seen  great  dinners,  and  balls,  and  meets,  and 
runs,  and  races ;  she  had  seen  garden-parties,  and  a 
lot  of  people,  mainly  women  (who,  however,  did  n't 
screech),  at  dull,  stuffy  teas,  and  distinguished  com- 
panies collected  in  splendid  castles ;  but  all  this  gave 


IADY  BARBERINA.  247 

her  no  idea  of  a  tradition  of  conversation,  of  a  social 
agreement  that  its  continuity,  its  accumulations  from 
season  to  season,  should  not  be  lost.  Conversation, 
in  Lady  Barb's  experience,  had  never  been  continuous ; 
in  such  a  case  it  would  surely  have  been  a  bore.  It 
had  been  occasional  and  fragmentary,  a  trifle  jerky, 
with  allusions  that  were  never  explained ;  it  had  a 
dread  of  detail ;  it  seldom  pursued  anything  very  far, 
or  kept  hold  of  it  very  long. 

There  was  something  else  that  she  did  not  say 
to  her  husband  in  reference  to  his  visions  of  hospi- 
tality, which  was,  that  if  she  should  open  a  saloon 
(she  had  taken  up  the  joke  as  well,  for  Lady  Barb 
was  eminently  good-natured),  Mrs.  Vanderdecken 
would  straightway  open  another,  and  Mrs.  Vander- 
decken's  would  be  the  more  successful  of  the  two. 
This  lady,  for  reasons  that  Lady  Barb  had  not  yet 
explored,  was  supposed  to  be  the  great  personage  in 
New  York;  there  were  legends  of  her  husband's 
family  having  behind  them  a  fabulous  antiquity. 
When  this  was  alluded  to,  it  was  spoken  of  as  some- 
thing incalculable,  and  lost  in  the  dimness  of  time. 
Mrs.  Vanderdecken  was  young,  pretty,  clever,  incre- 
dibly pretentious  (Lady  Barb  thought),  and  had  a 
wonderfully  artistic  house.  Ambition,  also,  was  ex- 
pressed in  every  rustle  of  her  garments ;  and  if  she 
was  the  first  person  in  America  (this  had  an  im- 
mense sound),  it  was  plain  that  she  intended  to  re- 
main so.  It  was  not  till  after  she  had  been  several 
months  in  New  York  that  it  came  over  Lady  Barb 


248  LADY  BARBERINA." 

that  this  brilliant  native  had  flung  down  the  glove ; 
and  when  the  idea  presented  itself,  lighted  up  by  an 
incident  which  I  have  no  space  to  relate,  she  simply 
blushed  a  little  (for  Mrs.  Vanderdecken),  and  held 
her  tongue.  She  -had  not  come  to  America  to  bandy 
words  about  precedence  with  such  a  woman  as  that. 
She  had  ceased  to  think  about  it  much  (of  course 
one  thought  about  it  in  England)  ;  but  an  instinct  of 
self-preservation  led  her  not  to  expose  herself  to 
occasions  on  which  her  claim  might  be  tested.  This, 
at  bottom,  had  much  to  do  with  her  having,  very 
soon  after  the  first  flush  of  the  honors  paid  her  on 
her  arrival,  and  which  seemed  to  her  rather  grossly 
overdone,  taken  the  line  of  scarcely  going  out. 
"  They  can't  keep  that  up  ! "  she  had  said  to  herself ; 
and,  in  short,  she  would  stay  at  home.  She  had  a 
feeling  that  whenever  she  should  go  forth  she  would 
meet  Mrs.  Yanderdecken,  who  would  withhold,  or 
deny,  or  contest  something,  —  poor  Lady  Barb  could 
never  imagine  what.  She  did  not  try  to,  and  gave 
little  thought  to  all  this ;  for  she  was  not  prone  to 
confess  to  herself  fears,  especially  fears  from  which 
terror  was  absent.  But,  as  I  have  said,  it  abode 
within  her  as  a  presentiment,  that  if  she  should  set 
up  a  drawing-room  in  the  foreign  style  (it  was 
curious,  in  New  York,  how  they  tried  to  be  for- 
eign), Mrs.  Vanderdecken  would  be  beforehand  with 
her.  The  continuity  of  conversation,  oh !  that  idea 
she  would  certainly  have  ;  there  was  no  one  so  con- 
tinuous as  Mrs.  Vanderdecken.  Lady  Barb,  as  I 


LADY  BARBERINA.  249 

have  related,  did  not  give  her  husband  the  surprise 
of  telling  him  of  these  thoughts,  though  she  had 
given  him  some  other  surprises.  He  would  have 
been  very  much  astonished,  and  perhaps,  after  a  bit, 
a  little  encouraged,  at  finding  that  she  was  liable  to 
this  particular  form  of  irritation. 

On  the  Sunday  afternoon  she  was  visible ;  and  on 
one  of  these  occasions,  going  into  her  drawing-room 
late,  he  found  her  entertaining  two  ladies  and  a  gen- 
tleman. The  gentleman  was  Sidney  Feeder,  and  one 
of  the  ladies  was  Mrs.  Vanderdecken,  whose  osten- 
sible relations  with  Lady  Barb  were  of  the  most  cor- 
dial nature.  If  she  intended  to  crush  her  (as  two  or 
three  persons,  not  conspicuous  for  a  narrow  accuracy, 
gave  out  that  she  privately  declared),  Mrs.  Vander- 
decken wished  at  least  to  study  the  weak  points  of 
the  invader,  to  penetrate  herself  with  the  character 
of  the  English  girl.  Lady  Barb,  indeed,  appeared  to 
have  a  mysterious  fascination  for  the  representative 
of  the  American  patriciate.  Mrs.  Vanderdecken 
could  not  take  her  eyes  off  her  victim ;  and  whatever 
might  be  her  estimate  of  her  importance,  she  at  least 
could  not  let  her  alone.  "  Why  does  she  come  to 
see  me  ?  "  poor  Lady  Barb  asked  herself.  "  I  am  sure 
I  don't  want  to  see  her;  she  has  done  enough  for 
civility  long  ago."  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  had  her  own 
reasons ;  and  one  of  them  was  simply  the  pleasure  of 
looking  at  the  Doctor's  wife,  as  she  habitually  called 
the  daughter  of  the  Cantervilles.  She  was  not  guilty 
of  the  folly  of  depreciating  this  lady's  appearance, 


250  LADY  BARBERINA. 

and  professed  an  unbounded  admiration  for  it,  de- 
fending it  on  many  occasions  against  superficial  peo- 
ple, who  said  there  were  fifty  women  in  New  York 
that  were  handsomer.  Whatever  might  have  been 
Lady  Barb's  weak  points,  they  were  not  the  curve  of 
her  cheek  and  chin,  the  setting  of  her  head  on  her 
throat,  or  the  quietness  of  her  deep  eyes,  which  were 
as  beautiful  as  if  they  had  been  blank,  like  those  of 
antique  busts.  "  The  head  is  enchanting  —  perfectly 
enchanting,"  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  used  to  say  irrel- 
evantly, as  if  there  were  only  one  head  in  the  place. 
She  always  used  to  ask  about  the  Doctor ;  and  that 
was  another  reason  why  she  came.  She  brought  up 
the  Doctor  at  every  turn;  asked  if  he  were  often 
called  up  at  night ;  found  it  the  greatest  of  luxuries, 
in  a  word,  to  address  Lady  Barb  as  the  wife  of  a 
medical  man,  more  or  less  au  courant  of  her  hus- 
band's patients.  The  other  lady,  on  this  Sunday 
afternoon,  was  a  certain  little  Mrs.  Chew,  who  had 
the  appearance  of  a  small,  but  very  expensive  doll, 
and  was  always  asking  Lady  Barb  about  England, 
which  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  never  did.  The  latter 
visitor  conversed  with  Lady  Barb  on  a  purely  Amer- 
ican basis,  with  that  continuity  (on  her  own  side)  of 
which  mention  has  already  been  made,  while  Mrs. 
Chew  engaged  Sidney  Feeder  on  topics  equally 
local.  Lady  Barb  liked  Sidney  Feeder ;  she  only 
hated  his  name,  which  was  constantly  in  her  ears 
during  the  half-hour  the  ladies  sat  with  her;  Mrs. 
Chew  having  the  habit,  which  annoyed  Lady  Barb, 


LADY  BARBERINA.  251 

of  repeating  perpetually  the  appellation  of  her  inter- 
locutor. 

Lady  Barb's  relations  with  Mrs.  Vanderdecken 
consisted  mainly  in  wondering,  while  she  talked, 
what  she  wanted  of  her,  and  in  looking,  with  her 
sculptured  eyes,  at  her  visitor's  clothes,  in  which 
there  was  always  much  to  examine.  "  Oh,  Dr. 
Feeder!"  "Now,  Dr.  Feeder!"  "  Well,  Dr.  Feeder," 
—  these  exclamations,  on  the  lips  of  Mrs.  Chew, 
were  an  undertone  in  Lady  Barb's  consciousness. 
When  I  say  that  she  liked  her  husband's  confrere, 
as  he  used  to  call  himself,  I  mean  that  she  smiled 
at  him  when  he  came,  and  gave  him  her  hand, 
and  asked  him  if  he  would  have  some  tea.  There 
was  nothing  nasty  (as  they  said  in  London)  in  Lady 
Barb,  and  she  would  have  been  incapable  of  inflicting 
a  deliberate  snub  upon  a  man  who  had  the  air  of 
standing  up  so  squarely  to  any  work  that  he  might 
have  in  hand.  But  she  had  nothing  to  say  to  Sid- 
ney Feeder.  He  apparently  had  the  art  of  making 
her  shy,  more  shy  than  usual ;  for  she  was  always  a 
little  so ;  she  discouraged  him,  discouraged  him  com- 
pletely. He  was  not  a  man  who  wanted  drawing 
out,  there  was  nothing  of  that  in  him,  he  was  re- 
markably copious ;  but  Lady  Barb  appeared  unable 
to  follow  him,  and  half  the  time,  evidently,  did  not 
know  what  he  was  saying.  He  tried  to  adapt  his 
conversation  to  her  needs ;  but  when  he  spoke  of  the 
world,  of  what  was  going  on  in  society,  she  was  more 
at  sea  even  than  when  he  spoke  of  hospitals  and 


252  LADY  BARBER1NA. 

laboratories,  and  the  health  of  the  city,  and  the  prog- 
ress of  science.  She  appeared,  indeed,  after  her  first 
smile,  when  he  came  in,  which  was  always  charming, 
scarcely  to  see  him,  looking  past  him,  and  above  him, 
and  below  him,  and  everywhere  but  at  him,  until  he 
got  up  to  go  again,  when  she  gave  him  another  smile, 
as  expressive  of  pleasure  and  of  casual  acquaintance 
as  that  with  which  she  had  greeted  his  entry ;  it 
seemed  to  imply  that  they  had  been  having  delight- 
ful talk  for  an  hour.  He  wondered  what  the  deuce 
Jackson  Lemon  could  find  interesting  in  such  a 
woman,  and  he  believed  that  his  perverse,  though 
gifted,  colleague  was  not  destined  to  feel  that  she 
illuminated  his  life.  He  pitied  Jackson,  he  saw  that 
Lady  Barb,  in  New  York,  would  neither  assimilate 
nor  be  assimilated ;  and  yet  he  was  afraid  to  betray 
his  incredulity,  thinking  it  might  be  depressing  to 
poor  Lemon  to  show  him  how  his  marriage  —  now 
so  dreadfully  irrevocable  —  struck  others.  Sidney 
Feeder  was  a  man  of  a  strenuous  conscience,  and  he 
did  his  duty  overmuch  by  his  old  friend  and  his  wife, 
from  the  simple  fear  that  he  should  not  do  it  enough. 
In  order  not  to  appear  to  neglect  them,  he  called  upon 
Lady  Barb  heroically,  in  spite  of  pressing  engage- 
ments, week  after  week,  enjoying  his  virtue  himself 
as  little  as  he  made  it  fruitful  for  his  hostess,  who 
wondered  at  last  what  she  had  done  to  deserve  these 
visitations.  She  spoke  of  them  to  her  husband,  who 
wondered  also  what  poor  Sidney  had  in  his  head, 
and  yet  was  unable,  of  course,  to  hint  to  him  that 


LADY  BARBERINA.  253 

he  need  not  think  it  necessary  to  come  so  often. 
Between  Dr.  Feeder's  wish  not  to  let  Jackson  see 
that  his  marriage  had  made  a  difference,  and  Jack- 
son's hesitation  to  reveal  to  Sidney  that  his  standard 
of  friendship  was  too  high,  Lady  Barb  passed  a  good 
many  of  those  numerous  hours  during  which  she 
asked  herself  if  she  had  come  to  America  for  that. 
Very  little  had  ever  passed  between  her  and  her 
husband  on  the  subject  of  Sidney  Feeder;  for  an 
instinct  told  her  that  if  they  were  ever  to  have 
scenes,  she  must  choose  the  occasion  well ;  and  this 
odd  person  was  not  an  occasion.  Jackson  had  tacitly 
admitted  that  his  friend  Feeder  was  anything  he 
chose  to  think  him ;  he  was  not  a  man  to  be  guilty, 
in  a  discussion,  of  the  disloyalty  of  damning  him 
with  praise  that  was  faint.  If  Lady  Agatha  had 
usually  been  with  her  sister,  Dr.  Feeder  would 
have  been  better  entertained ;  for  the  younger  of  the 
English  visitors  prided  herself,  after  several  months 
of  New  York,  on  understanding  everything  that  was 
said,  and  catching  every  allusion,  it  mattered  not 
from  what  lips  it  fell.  But  Lady  Agatha  was  never 
at  home ;  she  had  learned  how  to  describe  herself 
perfectly  by  the  time  she  wrote  to  her  mother  that 
she  was  always  "  on  the  go."  None  of  the  innumer- 
able victims  of  old-world  tyranny  who  have  fled  to 
the  United  States  as  to  a  land  of  freedom,  have  ever 
offered  more  lavish  incense  to  that  goddess  than  this 
emancipated  London  debutante.  She  had  enrolled 
herself  in  an  amiable  band  which  was  known  by  the 


254  LADY  BARBERINA. 

humorous  name  of  "  the  Tearers,"  —  a  dozen  young 
ladies  of  agreeable  appearance,  high  spirits,  and  good 
wind,  whose  most  general  characteristic  was  that, 
when  wanted,  they  were  to  be  sought  anywhere  in 
the  world  but  under  the  roof  that  was  supposed  to 
shelter  them.  They  were  never  at  home ;  and  when 
Sidney  Feeder,  as  sometimes  happened,  met  Lady 
Agatha  at  other  houses,  she  was  in  the  hands  of 
the  irrepressible  Longstraw.  She  had  come  back  to 
her  sister,  but  Mr.  Longstraw  had  followed  her  to  the 
door.  As  to  passing  it,  he  had  received  direct  dis- 
couragement from  her  brother-in-law ;  but  he  could 
at  least  hang  about  and  wait  for  her.  It  may  be 
confided  to  the  reader,  at  the  risk  of  diminishing  the 
effect  of  the  only  incident  which  in  the  course  of  this 
very  level  narrative  may  startle  him,  that  he  never 
had  to  wait  very  long. 

When  Jackson  Lemon  came  in,  his  wife's  visitors 
were  on  the  point  of  leaving  her ;  and  he  did  not  ask 
even  Sidney  Feeder  to  remain,  for  he  had  something 
particular  to  say  to  Lady  Barb. 

"  I  have  n't  asked  you  half  what  I  wanted  —  I 
have  been  talking  so  much  to  Dr.  Feeder,"  the 
dressy  Mrs.  Chew  said,  holding  the  hand  of  her 
hostess  in  one  of  her  own,  and  toying  with  one  of 
Lady  Barb's  ribbons  with  the  other. 

"  I  don't  think  I  have  anything  to  tell  you ;  I 
think  I  have  told  people  everything,"  Lady  Barb 
answered,  rather  wearily. 

"  You  have  n't  told  me  much  !  "  Mrs.  Yander- 
decken  said,  smiling  brightly. 


LADY  BARBERINA.  255 

"What  could  one  tell  you?  —  you  know  every- 
thing," Jackson  Lemon  interposed. 

"Ah,  no;  there  are  some  things  that  are  great 
mysteries  for  me,"  the  lady  returned.  "  I  hope  you 
are  coming  to  me  on  the  17th/'  she  added,  to  Lady 
Barb. 

"  On  the  17th  ?  I  think  we  are  going  somewhere." 

"  Do  go  to  Mrs.  Vanderdecken's,"  said  Mrs.  Chew ; 
"  you  '11  see  the  cream  of  the  cream." 

"Oh,  gracious ! "  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  exclaimed. 

"  Well,  I  don't  care ;  she  will,  won't  she,  Dr.  Feed- 
er ?  —  the  very  pick  of  American  society."  Mrs.  Chew 
stuck  to  her  point. 

"  Well,  I  have  no  doubt  Lady  Barb  will  have  a 
good  time,"  said  Sidney  Feeder.  "I'm  afraid  you 
miss  the  bran,"  he  went  on,  with  irrelevant  jocosity, 
to  Lady  Barb.  He  always  tried  the  jocose,  when 
other  elements  had  failed. 

"The  bran  ?"  asked  Lady  Barb,  staring. 

"Where  you  used  to  ride  in  the  Park." 

"  My  dear  fellow,  you  speak  as  if  it  were  the  cir- 
cus," Jackson  Lemon  said,  smiling ;  "  I  have  n't  mar- 
ried a  mountebank ! " 

"  Well,  they  put  some  stuff  on  the  road,"  Sidney 
Feeder  explained,  not  holding  much  to  his  joke. 

"  You  must  miss  a  great  many  things,"  said  Mrs. 
Chew,  tenderly. 

"  I  don't  see  what,"  Mrs.  Vanderdecken  remarked, 
"  except  the  fogs  and  the  Queen.  New  York  is  getting 
more  and  more  like  London.  It 's  a  pity ;  you  ought 
to  have  known  us  thirty  years  ago." 


256  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  You  are  the  queen,  here,"  said  Jackson  Lemon ; 
"but  I  don't  know  what  you  know  about  thirty 
years  ago." 

"  Do  you  think  she  does  n't  go  back  ?  —  she  goes 
back  to  the  last  century ! "  cried  Mrs.  Chew. 

"  I  dare  say  I  should  have  liked  that,"  said  Lady 
Barb ;  "  but  I  can't  imagine."  And  she  looked  at 
her  husband  —  a  look  she  often  had  —  as  if  she 
vaguely  wished  him  to  do  something. 

He  was  not  called  upon,  however,  to  take  any 
violent  steps,  for  Mrs.  Chew  presently  said :  "  Well, 
Lady  Barberina,  good-by ;"  and  Mrs.  Vanderdecken 
smiled  in  silence  at  her  hostess,  and  addressed  a  fare- 
well, accompanied  very  audibly  with  his  title,  to  her 
host ;  and  Sidney  Feeder  made  a  joke  about  stepping 
on  the  trains  of  the  ladies'  dresses  as  he  accompanied 
them  to  the  door.  Mrs.  Chew  had  always  a  great 
deal  to  say  at  the  last ;  she  talked  till  she  was  in  the 
street,  and  then  she  did  not  cease.  But  at  the  end  of 
five  minutes  Jackson  Lemon  was  alone  with  his  wife ; 
and  then  he  told  her  a  piece  of  news.  He  prefaced 
it,  however,  by  an  inquiry  as  he  came  back  from  the 
hall. 

"  Where  is  Agatha,  my  dear  ? " 

"  I  have  n't  the  least  idea.  In  the  streets  some- 
where, I  suppose." 

"  I  think  you  ought  to  know  a  little  more." 

"How  can  I  know  about  things  here?  I  have 
given  her  up ;  I  can  do  nothing  with  her.  I  don't 
care  what  she  does." 


LADY  BARBERINA.  257 

"  She  ought  to  go  back  to  England,"  Jackson  Lemon 
said,  after  a  pause. 

"  She  ought  never  to  have  come." 

"  It  was  not  my  proposal,  God  knows ! "  Jackson 
answered,  rather  sharply. 

"  Mamma  could  never  know  what  it  really  is,"  said 
his  wife. 

"  No,  it  has  not  been  as  yet  what  your  mother  sup- 
posed !  Herman  Longstraw  wants  to  marry  her.  He 
has  made  me  a  formal  proposal.  I  met  him  half  an 
hour  ago  in  Madison  Avenue,  and  he  asked  me  to 
come  with  him  into  the  Columbia  Club.  There,  in 
the  billiard-room,  which  to-day  is  empty,  he  opened 
himself — thinking  evidently  that  in  laying  the  mat- 
ter before  me  he  was  behaving  with  extraordinary 
propriety.  He  tells  me  he  is  dying  of  love,  and  that 
she  is  perfectly  willing  to  go  and  live  in  Arizona." 

"  So  she  is,"  said  Lady  Barb.  "  And  what  did  you 
tell  him?" 

"  I  told  him  that  I  was  sure  it  would  never  do, 
and  that  at  any  rate  I  could  have  nothing  to  say  to 
it.  I  told  him  explicitly,  in  short,  what  I  had  told 
him  virtually  before.  I  said  that  we  should  send 
Agatha  straight  back  to  England,  and  that  if  they 
had  the  courage  they  must  themselves  broach  the 
question  over  there." 

"When  shall  you  send  her  back?"  asked  Lady 
Barb. 

"  Immediately ;  by  the  very  first  steamer." 

"  Alone,  like  an  American  girl  ?  * 


258  LADY  BARBERINA. 

"  Don't  be  rough,  Barb,"  said  Jackson  Lemon.  "  I 
shall  easily  find  some  people ;  lots  of  people  are  sail- 
ing now." 

"  I  must  take  her  myself,"  Lady  Barb  declared  in 
a  moment.  "  I  brought  her  out,  and  I  must  restore 
her  to  my  mother's  hands." 

Jackson  Lemon  had  expected  this,  and  he  believed  he 
was  prepared  for  it.  But  when  it  came  he  found  his 
preparation  was  not  complete ;  for  he  had  no  answer 
to  make  —  none,  at  least,  that  seemed  to  him  to  go 
to  the  point.  During  these  last  weeks  it  had  come 
over  him,  with  a  quiet,  irresistible,  unmerciful  force, 
that  Mrs.  Dexter  Freer  had  been  right  when  she  said 
to  him,  that  Sunday  afternoon  in  Jermyn  Street,  the 
summer  before,  that  he  would  find  it  was  not  so  sim- 
ple to  be  an  American.  Such  an  identity  was  com- 
plicated, in  just  the  measure  that  she  had  foretold,  by 
the  difficulty  of  domesticating  one's  wife.  The  diffi- 
culty was  not  dissipated  by  his  having  taken  a  high 
tone  about  it ;  it  pinched  him  from  morning  till  night, 
like  a  misfitting  shoe.  His  high  tone  had  given  him 
courage  when  he  took  the  great  step ;  but  he  began 
to  perceive  that  the  highest  tone  in  the  world  cannot 
change  the  nature  of  tilings.  His  ears  tingled  when 
he  reflected  that  if  the  Dexter  Freers,  whom  he  had 
thought  alike  abject  in  their  hopes  and  their  fears, 
had  been  by  ill-luck  spending  the  winter  in  New 
York,  they  would  have  found  his  predicament  as  en- 
tertaining as  they  could  desire.  Drop  by  drop  the 
conviction  had  entered  his  mind  —  the  first  drop  had 


LADY  BARBERINA.  259 

come  in  the  form  of  a  word  from  Lady  Agatha  — 
that  if  his  wife  should  return  to  England  she  would 
never  again  cross  the  Atlantic  to  the  west.  That 
word  from  Lady  Agatha  had  been  the  touch  from  the 
outside,  at  which,  often,  one's  fears  crystallize.  What 
she  would  do,  how  she  would  resist,  —  this  he  was  not 
yet  prepared  to  tell  himself ;  but  he  felt,  every  time 
he  looked  at  her,  that  this  beautiful  woman  whom  he 
had  adored  was  filled  with  a  dumb,  insuperable,  inera- 
dicable purpose.  He  knew  that  if  she  should  plant 
herself,  no  power  on  earth  would  move  her ;  and  her 
blooming,  antique  beauty,  and  the  general  loftiness  of 
her  breeding,  came  to  seem  to  him  —  rapidly  —  but 
the  magnificent  expression  of  a  dense,  patient,  imper- 
turbable obstinacy.  She  was  not  light,  she  was  not 
supple,  and  after  six  months  of  marriage  he  had  made 
up  his  mind  that  she  was  not  clever ;  but  neverthe- 
less she  would  elude  him.  She  had  married  him,  she 
had  come  into  his  fortune  and  his  consideration  — 
for  who  was  she,  after  all  ?  Jackson  Lemon  was  once 
so  angry  as  to  ask  himself,  reminding  himself  that  in 
England  Lady  Claras  and  Lady  Florences  were  as 
thick  as  blackberries  —  but  she  would  have  nothing 
to  do,  if  she  could  help  it,  with  his  country.  She  had 
gone  in  to  dinner  first  in  every  house  in  the  place, 
but  this  had  not  satisfied  her.  It  had  been  simple  to 
be  an  American,  in  this  sense,  that  no  one  else  in 
New  York  had  made  any  difficulties ;  the  difficulties 
had  sprung  from  her  peculiar  feelings,  which  were 
after  all  what  he  had  married  her  for,  thinking  they 


260  LADY  BARBERINA. 

would  be  a  fine  temperamental  heritage  for  his  brood. 
So  they  would,  doubtless,  in  the  coming  years,  after 
the  brood  should  have  appeared ;  but  meanwhile  they 
interfered  with  the  best  heritage  of  all  —  the  nation- 
ality of  his  possible  children.  Lady  Barb  would  do 
nothing  violent;  he  was  tolerably  certain  of  that. 
She  would  not  return  to  England  without  his  con- 
sent ;  only,  when  she  should  return,  it  would  be  once 
for  all.  His  only  possible  line,  then,  was  not  to  take 
her  back, — a  position  replete  with  difficulties,  because, 
of  course,  he  had,  in  a  manner,  given  his  word,  while 
she  had  given  no  word  at  all,  beyond  the  general 
promise  she  murmured  at  the  altar.  She  had  been 
general,  but  he  had  been  specific;  the  settlements  he 
had  made  were  a  part  of  that.  His  difficulties  were 
such  as  he  could  not  directly  face.  He  must  tack  in 
approaching  so  uncertain  a  coast.  He  said  to  Lady 
Barb  presently  that  it  would  be  very  inconvenient 
for  him  to  leave  New  York  at  that  moment :  she  must 
remember  that  their  plans  had  been  laid  for  a  later 
departure.  He  could  not  think  of  letting  her  make 
the  voyage  without  him,  and,  on  the  other  hand,  they 
must  pack  her  sister  off  without  delay.  He  would 
therefore  make  instant  inquiry  for  a  chaperon,  and 
he  relieved  his  irritation  by  expressing  considerable 
disgust  at  Herman  Longstraw. 

Lady  Barb  did  not  trouble  herself  to  denounce  this 
gentleman ;  her  manner  was  that  of  having  for  a  long 
time  expected  the  worst.  She  simply  remarked  dryly, 
after  having  listened  to  her  husband  for  some  minutes 


LADY  BARBERINA.  261 

in  silence :  "  I  would  as  lief  she  should  marry  Dr. 
Feeder ! " 

The  day  after  this,  Jackson  Lemon  closeted  himself 
for  an  hour  with  Lady  Agatha,  taking  great  pains  to 
set  forth  to  her  the  reasons  why  she  should  not  marry 
her  Californian.  Jackson  was  kind,  he  was  affection- 
ate ;  he  kissed  her  and  put  his  arm  round  her  waist, 
he  reminded  her  that  he  and  she  were  the  best  of 
friends,  and  that  she  had  always  been  awfully  nice 
to  him ;  therefore  he  counted  upon  her.  She  would 
break  her  mother's  heart,  she  would  deserve  her 
father's  curse,  and  she  would  get  him,  Jackson,  into 
a  pickle  from  which  no  human  power  could  ever  dis- 
embroil him.  Lady  Agatha  listened  and  cried,  and 
returned  his  kiss  very  affectionately,  and  admitted 
that  her  father  and  mother  would  never  consent  to 
such  a  marriage ;  and  when  he  told  her  that  he  had 
made  arrangements  for  her  to  sail  for  Liverpool  (with 
some  charming  people)  the  next  day  but  one,  she  em- 
braced him  again  and  assured  him  that  she  could 
never  thank  him  enough  for  all  the  trouble  he  had 
taken  about  her.  He  flattered  himself  that  he  had 
convinced,  and  in  some  degree  comforted  her,  and 
reflected  with  complacency  that  even  should  his  wife 
take  it  into  her  head,  Barberina  would  never  get  ready 
to  embark  for  her  native  land  between  a  Monday  and 
a  Wednesday.  The  next  morning  Lady  Agatha  did 
not  appear  at  breakfast ;  but  as  she  usually  rose  very 
late,  her  absence  excited  no  alarm.  She  had  not  rung 
her  bell,  and  she  was  supposed  still  to  be  sleeping. 


262  LADY  BARBERINA. 

But  she  had  never  yet  slept  later  than  mid-day ;  and 
as  this  hour  approached  her  sister  went  to  her  room. 
Lady  Barb  then  discovered  that  she  had  left  the  house 
at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  had  gone  to 
meet  Herman  Longstraw  at  a  neighboring  corner.  A 
little  note  on  the  table  explained  it  very  succinctly, 
and  put  beyond  the  power  of  Jackson  Lemon  and  his 
wife  to  doubt  that  by  the  time  this  news  reached 
them  their  wayward  sister  had  been  united  to  the 
man  of  her  preference  as  closely  as  the  laws  of  the 
State  of  New  York  could  bind  her.  Her  little  note 
set  forth  that  as  she  knew  she  should  never  be  per- 
mitted to  marry  him,  she  had  determined  to  marry 
him  without  permission,  and  that  directly  after  the 
ceremony,  which  would  be  of  the  simplest  kind,  they 
were  to  take  a  train  for  the  Far  West.  Our  history 
is  concerned  only  with  the  remote  consequences  of 
this  incident,  which  made,  of  course,  a  great  deal  of 
trouble  for  Jackson  Lemon.  He  went  to  the  Far 
West  in  pursuit  of  the  fugitives,  and  overtook  them 
in  California ;  but  he  had  not  the  audacity  to  propose 
to  them  to  separate,  as  it  was  easy  for  him  to  see  that 
Herman  Longstraw  was  at  least  as  well  married  as 
himself.  Lady  Agatha  was  already  popular  in  the 
new  States,  where  the  history  of  her  elopement,  em- 
blazoned in  enormous  capitals,  was  circulated  in  a 
thousand  newspapers.  This  question  of  the  news- 
papers had  been  for  Jackson  Lemon  one  of  the  most 
definite  results  of  his  sister-in-law's  coup  de  tete.  His 
first  thought  had  been  of  the  public  prints,  and  his 


LADY  BARBERINA.  263 

first  exclamation  a  prayer  that  they  should  Dot  get 
hold  of  the  story.  But  they  did  get  hold  of  it,  and 
they  treated  the  affair  with  their  customary  energy 
and  eloquence.  Lady  Barb  never  saw  them ;  but  an 
affectionate  friend  of  the  family,  travelling  at  that 
time  in  the  United  States,  made  a  parcel  of  some  of 
the  leading  journals,  and  sent  them  to  Lord  Canter- 
ville.  This  missive  elicited  from  her  ladyship  a  letter 
addressed  to  Jackson  Lernon  which  shook  the  young 
man's  position  to  the  base.  The  phials  of  an  unnam- 
able  vulgarity  had  been  opened  upon  the  house  of 
Canterville,  and  his  mother-in-law  demanded  that  in 
compensation  for  the  affronts  and  injuries  that  were 
being  heaped  upon  her  family,  and  bereaved  and  dis- 
honored as  she  was,  she  should  at  least  be  allowed  to 
look  on  the  face  of  her  other  daughter.  "  I  suppose 
you  will  not,  for  very  pity,  be  deaf  to  such  a  prayer 
as  that,"  said  Lady  Barb ;  and  though  shrinking  from 
recording  a  second  act  of  weakness  on  the  part  of  a  man 
who  had  such  pretensions  to  be  strong,  I  must  relate 
that  poor  Jackson,  who  blushed  dreadfully  over  the 
newspapers,  and  felt  afresh,  as  he  read  them,  the  force 
of  Mrs.  Freer's  terrible  axiom,  —  poor  Jackson  paid  a 
visit  to  the  office  of  the  Cunarders.  He  said  to  him- 
self afterward  that  it  was  the  newspapers  that  had  done 
it ;  he  could  not  bear  to  appear  to  be  on  their  side  ; 
they  made  it  so  hard  to  deny  that  the  country  was 
vulgar,  at  a  time  when  one  was  in  such  need  of  all 
one's  arguments.  Lady  Barb,  before  sailing,  definitely 
refused  to  mention  any  week  or  month  as  the  date  of 


264  LADY  BARBERINA. 

their  pre-arranged  return  to  New  York.  Very  many 
weeks  and  months  have  elapsed  since  then,  and  she 
gives  no  sign  of  coming  back.  She  will  never  fix  a 
date.  She  is  much  missed  by  Mrs.  Vanderdecken, 
who  still  alludes  to  her  —  still  says  the  line  of  the 
shoulders  was  superb;  putting  the  statement,  pen- 
sively, in  the  past  tense.  Lady  Beauchemin  and  Lady 
Marmaduke  are  much  disconcerted ;  the  international 
project  has  not,  in  their  view,  received  an  impetus. 

Jackson  Lemon  has  a  house  in  London,  and  he 
rides  in  the  Park  with  his  wife,  who  is  as  beautiful  as 
the  day,  and  a  year  ago  presented  him  with  a  little 
girl,  with  features  that  Jackson  already  scans  for  the 
look  of  race,  —  whether  in  hope  or  fear,  to-day,  is  more 
than  my  muse  has  revealed.  He  has  occasional  scenes 
with  Lady  Barb,  during  which  the  look  of  race  is  very 
visible  in  her  own  countenance ;  but  they  never  termi- 
nate in  a  visit  to  the  Cunarders.  He  is  exceedingly 
restless,  and  is  constantly  crossing  to  the  Continent ; 
but  he  returns  with  a  certain  abruptness,  for  he  can- 
not bear  to  meet  the  Dexter  Freers,  and  they  seem 
to  pervade  the  more  comfortable  parts  of  Europe. 
He  dodges  them  in  every  town.  Sidney  Feeder  feels 
very  badly  about  him ;  it  is  months  since  Jackson  has 
sent  him  any  "  results."  The  excellent  fellow  goes 
very  often,  in  a  consolatory  spirit,  to  see  Mrs.  Lemon ; 
but  he  has  not  yet  been  able  to  answer  her  standing 
question:  "Why  that  girl  more  than  another?"  Lady 
Agatha  Longstraw  and  her  husband  arrived  a  year 
ago  in  England,  and  Mr.  Longstraw's  personality  had 


LADY  BARBERINA.  265 

immense  success  during  the  last  London  season.  It 
is  not  exactly  known  what  they  live  on,  though  it  is 
perfectly  known  that  he  is  looking  for  something  to 
do.  Meanwhile  it  is  as  good  as  known  that  Jackson 
Lemon  supports  them. 


A   NEW   ENGLAND    WINTER 


A   NEW   ENGLAND    WINTER 


MRS.  DAINTRY  stood  on  her  steps  a  moment,  to 
address  a  parting  injunction  to  her  little  domestic, 
whom  she  had  induced  a  few  days  before,  by  earnest 
and  friendly  argument,  —  the  only  coercion  or  persua- 
sion this  enlightened  mistress  was  ever  known  to  use, 
—  to  crown  her  ruffled  tresses  with  a  cap ;  and  then, 
slowly  and  with  deliberation,  she  descended  to  the 
street.  As  soon  as  her  back  was  turned,  her  maid- 
servant closed  the  door,  not  with  violence,  but  inaudi- 
bly,  quickly,  and  firmly ;  so  that  when  she  reached 
the  bottom  of  the  steps  and  looked  up  again  at  the 
front,  —  as  she  always  did  before  leaving  it,  to  assure 
herself  that  everything  was  well, —  the  folded  wings  of 
her  portal  were  presented  to  her,  smooth  and  shining, 
as  wings  should  be,  and  ornamented  with  the  large 
silver  plate  on  which  the  name  of  her  late  husband 
was  inscribed,  —  which  she  had  brought  with  her 
when,  taking  the  inevitable  course  of  good  Bostonians, 
she  had  transferred  her  household  goods  from  the 


270  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

"  hill "  to  the  "  new  land,"  and  the  exhibition  of  which, 
as  an  act  of  conjugal  fidelity,  she  preferred  —  how 
much,  those  who  knew  her  could  easily  understand  — 
to  the  more  distinguished  modern  fashion  of  suppress- 
ing the  domiciliary  label.  She  stood  still  for  a  min- 
ute on  the  pavement,  looking  at  the  closed  aperture  of 
her  dwelling  and  asking  herself  a  question ;  not  that 
there  was  anything  extraordinary  in  that,  for  she 
never  spared  herself  in  this  respect.  She  would 
greatly  have  preferred  that  her  servant  should  not 
shut  the  door  till  she  had  reached  the  sidewalk,  and 
dismissed  her,  as  it  were,  with  that  benevolent,  that 
almost  maternal,  smile  with  which  it  was  a  part  of 
Mrs.  Daintry's  religion  to  encourage  and  reward  her 
domestics.  She  liked  to  know  that  her  door  was  be- 
ing held  open  behind  her  until  she  should  pass  out 
of  sight  of  the  young  woman  standing  in  the  hall. 
There  was  a  want  of  respect  in  shutting  her  out  so 
precipitately ;  it  was  almost  like  giving  her  a  push 
down  the  steps.  What  Mrs.  Daintry  asked  herself 
was,  whether  she  should  not  do  right  to  ascend  the 
steps  again,  ring  the  bell,  and  request  Beatrice,  the 
parlor-maid,  to  be  so  good  as  to  wait  a  little  longer. 
She  felt  that  this  would  have  been  a  proceeding  of 
some  importance,  and  she  presently  decided  against  it. 
There  were  a  good  many  reasons,  and  she  thought 
them  over  as  she  took  her  way  slowly  up  Newbury 
Street,  turning  as  soon  as  possible  into  Common- 
wealth Avenue ;  for  she  was  very  fond  of  the  south 
side  of  this  beautiful  prospect,  and  the  autumn  sun- 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  271 

shine  to-day  was  delightful.  During  the  moment 
that  she  paused,  looking  up  at  her  house,  she  had 
had  time  to  see  that  everything  was  as  fresh  and 
bright  as  she  could  desire.  It  looked  a  little  too 
new,  perhaps,  and  Florimond  would  not  like  that ; 
for  of  course  his  great  fondness  was  for  the  antique, 
which  was  the  reason  for  his  remaining  year  after 
year  in  Europe,  where,  as  a  young  painter  of  consid- 
erable, if  not  of  the  highest,  promise,  he  had  oppor- 
tunities to  study  the  most  dilapidated  buildings.  It 
was  a  comfort  to  Mrs.  Daintry,  however,  to  be  able 
to  say  to  herself  that  he  would  be  struck  with  her 
living  really  very  nicely,  —  more  nicely,  in  many 
ways,  than  he  could  possibly  be  accommodated  — 
that  she  was  sure  of — in  a  small  dark  appartement 
de  garden  in  Paris,  011  the  uncomfortable  side  of  the 
Seine.  Her  state  of  mind  at  present  was  such  that 
she  set  the  highest  value  on  anything  that  could  pos- 
sibly help  to  give  Florimond  a  pleasant  impression. 
Nothing  could  be  too  small  to  count,  she  said  to  her- 
self; for  she  knew  that  Florimond  was  both  fastid- 
ious and  observant.  Everything  that  would  strike 
him  agreeably  would  contribute  to  detain  him,  so 
that  if  there  were  only  enough  agreeable  things  he 
would  perhaps  stay  four  or  five  months,  instead  of 
three,  as  he  had  promised,  —  the  three  that  were  to 
date  from  the  day  of  his  arrival  in  Boston,  not  from 
that  (an  important  difference)  of  his  departure  from 
Liverpool,  which  was  about  to  take  place. 

It  was  Florimond  that  Mrs.  Daintry  had  had  in 


272  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

inind  when,  on  emerging  from  the  little  vestibule,  she 
gave  the  direction  to  Beatrice  about  the  position  of 
the  door-mat,  —  in  which  the  young  woman,  so  care- 
fully selected,  as  a  Protestant,  from  the  British 
Provinces,  had  never  yet  taken  the  interest  that  her 
mistress  expected  from  such  antecedents.  It  was 
Florimond  also  that  she  had  thought  of  in  putting 
before  her  parlor-maid  the  question  of  donning  a 
badge  of  servitude  in  the  shape  of  a  neat  little 
muslin  coif,  adorned  with  pink  ribbon  and  stitched 
together  by  Mrs.  Dain  try's  own  beneficent  fingers. 
Naturally  there  was  no  obvious  connection  between 
the  parlor-maid's  coiffure  and  the  length  of  Flori- 
mond's  stay ;  that  detail  was  to  be  only  a  part  of  the 
general  effect  of  American  life.  It  was  still  Flori- 
mond  that  was  uppermost  as  his  mother,  on  her  way 
up  the  hill,  turned  over  in  her  mind  that  question  of 
the  ceremony  of  the  front-door.  He  had  been  living 
in  a  country  in  which  servants  observed  more  forms, 
and  he  would  doubtless  be  shocked  at  Beatrice's 
want  of  patience.  An  accumulation  of  such  anoma- 
lies would  at  last  undermine  his  loyalty.  He  would 
not  care  for  them  for  himself,  of  course,  but  he  would 
care  about  them  for  her ;  coining  from  France,  where, 
as  she  knew  by  his  letters,  and  indeed  by  her  own  read- 
ing, —  for  she  made  a  remarkably  free  use  of  the  Athe- 
naeum, —  that  the  position  of  a  mother  was  one  of  the 
most  exalted,  he  could  not  fail  to  be  froisse  at  any 
want  of  consideration  for  his  surviving  parent.  As 
an  artist,  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to  live  in 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  273 

Boston ;  but  he  was  a  good  son  for  all  that.  He  had 
told  her  frequently  that  they  might  easily  live  to- 
gether if  she  would  only  come  to  Paris  ;  but  of  course 
she  could  not  do  that,  with  Joanna  and  her  six  chil- 
dren round  in  Clarendon  Street,  and  her  responsibili- 
ties to  her  daughter  multiplied  in  the  highest  degree. 
Besides,  during  that  winter  she  spent  in  Paris,  when 
Florimond  was  definitely  making  up  his  mind,  and 
they  had  in  the  evening  the  most  charming  conver- 
sations, interrupted  only  by  the  repeated  care  of 
winding  up  the  lamp  or  applying  the  bellows  to  the 
obstinate  little  fire,  —  during  that  winter  she  had  felt 
that  Paris  was  not  her  element.  She  had  gone  to 
the  lectures  at  the  Sorbonne,  and  she  had  visited  the 
Louvre  as  few  people  did  it,  catalogue  in  hand,  tak- 
ing the  catalogue  volume  by  volume;  but  all  the 
while  she  was  thinking  of  Joanna  and  her  new  baby, 
and  how  the  other  three  (that  was  the  number  then) 
were  getting  on  while  their  mother  was  so  much 
absorbed  with  the  last.  Mrs.  Daintry,  familiar  as 
she  was  with  these  anxieties,  had  not  the  step  of  a 
grandmother ;  for  a  mind  that  was  always  intent  had 
the  effect  of  refreshing  and  brightening  her  years. 
Eesponsibility  with  her  was  not  a  weariness,  but  a 
joy,  —  at  least  it  was  the  nearest  approach  to  a  joy  that 
she  knew,  and  she  did  not  regard  her  life  as  especially 
cheerless ;  there  were  many  others  that  were  more 
denuded  than  hers.  She  moved  with  circumspection, 
but  without  reluctance,  holding  up  her  head  and 
looking  at  every  one  she  met  with  a  clear,  unaccus- 

18 


274  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

ing  gaze.  This  expression  showed  that  she  took  an 
interest,  as  she  ought,  in  everything  that  concerned 
her  fellow-creatures ;  but  there  was  that  also  in  her 
whole  person  which  indicated  that  she  went  no  far- 
ther than  Christian  charity  required.  It  was  only 
with  regard  to  Joanna  and  that  vociferous  houseful,  — 
so  fertile  in  problems,  in  opportunities  for  devotion, 
—  that  she  went  really  very  far.  And  now  to-day,  of 
course,  in  this  matter  of  Florimond's  visit,  after  an 
absence  of  six  years;  which  was  perhaps  more  on 
her  mind  than  anything  had  ever  been.  People  who 
met  Mrs.  Daintry  after  she  had  traversed  the  Public 
Garden  —  she  always  took  that  way  —  and  begun  to 
ascend  the  charming  slope  of  Beacon  Street,  would 
never,  in  spite  of  the  relaxation  of  her  pace  as  she 
measured  this  eminence,  have  mistaken  her  for  a 
little  old  lady  who  should  have  crept  out,  vaguely 
and  timidly,  to  inhale  one  of  the  last  mild  days.  It 
was  easy  to  see  that  she  was  not  without  a  duty,  or 
at  least  a  reason,  —  and  indeed  Mrs.  Daintry  had  never 
in  her  life  been  left  in  this  predicament.  People 
who  knew  her  ever  so  little  would  have  felt  that 
she  was  going  to  call  on  a  relation ;  and  if  they  had 
been  to  the  manner  born  they  would  have  added  a 
mental  hope  that  her  relation  was  prepared  for  her 
visit.  No  one  would  have  doubted  this,  however, 
who  had  been  aware  that  her  steps  were  directed  to 
the  habitation  of  Miss  Lucretia  Daintry.  Her  sister- 
in-law,  her  husband's  only  sister,  lived  in  that  com- 
modious nook  which  is  known  as  Mount  Vernon 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  275 

Place ;  and  Mrs.  Daintry  therefore  turned  off  at  Joy 
Street.  By  the  time  she  did  so,  she  had  quite 
settled  in  her  mind  the  question  of  Beatrice's  be- 
havior in  connection  with  the  front-door.  She  had 
decided  that  it  would  never  do  to  make  a  formal  re- 
monstrance, for  it  was  plain  that,  in  spite  of  the  Old- 
World  training  which  she  hoped  the  girl  might  have 
imbibed  in  Nova  Scotia  (where,  until  lately,  she 
learned,  there  had  been  an  English  garrison),  she 
would  in  such  a  case  expose  herself  to  the  danger  of 
desertion ;  Beatrice  would  not  consent  to  stand  there 
holding  the  door  open  for  nothing.  And  after  all,  in 
the  depths  of  her  conscience  Mrs.  Daintry  was  not 
sure  that  she  ought  to ;  she  was  not  sure  that  this 
was  an  act  of  homage  that  one  human  being  had 
a  right  to  exact  of  another,  simply  because  this 
other  happened  to  wear  a  little  muslin  cap  with  pink 
ribbons.  It  was  a  service  that  ministered  to  her  im- 
portance, to  her  dignity,  not  to  her  hunger  or  thirst ; 
and  Mrs.  Daintry,  who  had  had  other  foreign  advan- 
tages besides  her  winter  in  Paris,  was  quite  aware 
that  in  the  United  States  the  machinery  for  that 
former  kind  of  tribute  was  very  undeveloped.  It 
was  a  luxury  that  one  ought  not  to  pretend  to  enjoy,  — 
it  was  a  luxury,  indeed,  that  she  probably  ought  not  to 
presume  to  desire.  At  the  bottom  of  her  heart  Mrs. 
Daintry  suspected  that  such  hankerings  were  crimi- 
nal. And  yet,  turning  the  thing  over,  as  she  turned 
everything,  she  could  not  help  coming  back  to  the 
idea  that  it  would  be  very  pleasant,  it  would  be  really 


276  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

delightful,  if  Beatrice  herself,  as  a  result  of  the  grow- 
ing refinement  of  her  taste,  her  transplantation  to  a 
society  after  all  more  elaborate  than  that  of  Nova 
Scotia,  should  perceive  the  fitness,  the  felicity,  of 
such  an  attitude.  This  perhaps  was  too  much  to 
hope ;  but  it  did  not  much  matter,  for  before  she  had 
turned  into  Mount  Vernon  Place  Mrs.  Daintry  had 
invented  a  compromise.  She  would  continue  to  talk 
to  her  parlor-maid  until  she  should  reach  the  bottom 
of  her  steps,  making  earnestly  one  remark  after  the 
other  over  her  shoulder,  so  that  Beatrice  would  be 
obliged  to  remain  on  the  threshold.  It  is  true  that 
it  occurred  to  her  that  the  girl  might  not  attach  much 
importance  to  these  Parthian  observations,  and  would 
perhaps  not  trouble  herself  to  wait  for  their  natural 
term ;  but  this  idea  was  too  fraught  with  embarrass- 
ment to  be  long  entertained.  It  must  be  added  that 
this  was  scarcely  a  moment  for  Mrs.  Daintry  to  go 
much  into  the  ethics  of  the  matter,  for  she  felt  that 
her  call  upon  her  sister-in-law  was  the  consequence 
of  a  tolerably  unscrupulous  determination. 


II. 


LUCRETIA  DAINTRY  was  at  home,  for  a  wonder; 
but  she  kept  her  visitor  waiting  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  during  which  this  lady  had  plenty  of  time  to 
consider  her  errand  afresh.  She  was  a  little  ashamed 
of  it ;  but  she  did  not  so  much  mind  being  put  to 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  277 

shame  by  Lucretia,  for  Lucretia  did  things  that  were 
much  more  ambiguous  than  any  she  should  have 
thought  of  doing.  It  was  even  for  this  that  Mrs. 
Dai  11  try  had  picked  her  out,  among  so  many  relations, 
as  the  object  of  an  appeal  in  its  nature  somewhat 
precarious.  Nevertheless,  her  heart  beat  a  little 
faster  than  usual  as  she  sat  in  the  quiet  parlor, 
looking  about  her  for  the  thousandth  time  at  Lucre- 
tia's  "things,"  and  observing  that  she  was  faithful 
to  her  old  habit  of  not  having  her  furnace  lighted 
until  long  after  every  one  else.  Miss  Daintry  had 
her  own  habits,  and  she  was  the  only  person  her 
sister-in-law  knew  who  had  more  reasons  than  her- 
self. Her  taste  was  of  the  old  fashion,  and  her 
drawing-room  embraced  neither  festoons  nor  Persian 
rugs,  nor  plates  and  plaques  upon  the  wall,  nor 
faded  stuffs  suspended  from  unexpected  projections. 
Most  of  the  articles  it  contained  dated  from  the 
year  1830;  and  a  sensible,  reasonable,  rectangular 
arrangement  of  them  abundantly  answered  to  their 
owner's  conception  of  the  decorative.  A  rosewood 
sofa  against  the  wall,  surmounted  by  an  engraving 
from  Kaulbach;  a  neatly  drawn  carpet,  faded,  but 
little  worn,  and  sprigged  with  a  floral  figure ;  a 
chimney-piece  of  black  marble,  veined  with  yellow, 
garnished  with  an  empire  clock  and  antiquated 
lamps ;  half  a  dozen  large  mirrors,  with  very  narrow 
frames ;  and  an  immense  glazed  screen  representing 
in  the  livid  tints  of  early  worsted-work  a  ruined 
temple  overhanging  a  river,  —  these  were  some  of  the 


278  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

more  obvious  of  Miss  Daintry's  treasures.  Her  sister- 
in-law  was  a  votary  of  the  newer  school,  and  had 
made  sacrifices  to  have  everything  in  black  and  gilt ; 
but  she  could  not  fail  to  see  that  Lucretia  had  some 
very  good  pieces.  It  was  a  wonder  how  she  made 
them  last,  for  Lucretia  had  never  been  supposed  to 
know  much  about  the  keeping  of  a  house,  and  no  one 
would  have  thought  of  asking  her  how  she  treated 
the  marble  floor  of  her  vestibule,  or  what  measures 
she  took  in  the  spring  with  regard  to  her  curtains. 
Her  work  in  life  lay  outside.  She  took  an  interest 
in  questions  and  institutions,  sat  on  committees,  and 
had  views  on  Female  Suffrage,  —  a  movement  which 
she  strongly  opposed.  She  even  wrote  letters  some- 
times to  the  "  Transcript,"  not  "  chatty  "  and  jocular, 
and  signed  with  a  fancy  name,  but  "over"  her 
initials,  as  the  phrase  was,  —  every  one  recognized 
them,  —  and  bearing  on  some  important  topic.  She 
was  not,  however,  in  the  faintest  degree  slipshod  or 
dishevelled,  like  some  of  the  ladies  of  the  newspaper 
and  the  forum ;  she  had  no  ink  on  her  fingers,  and 
she  wore  her  bonnet  as  scientifically  poised  as  the 
dome  of  the  State  House.  When  you  rang  at  her 
door-bell  you  were  never  kept  waiting,  and  when 
you  entered  her  dwelling  you  were  not  greeted  with 
those  culinary  odors  which,  pervading  halls  and 
parlors,  had  in  certain  other  cases  been  described 
as  the  right  smell  in  the  wrong  place.  If  Mrs. 
Daintry  was  made  to  wait  some  time  before  her 
hostess  appeared,  there  was  nothing  extraordinary 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  279 

in  this,  for  none  of  her  friends  came  down  directly, 
and  she  never  did  herself.  To  come  •  down  directly 
would  have  seemed  to  her  to  betray  a  frivolous 
eagerness  for  the  social  act.  The  delay,  moreover, 
not  only  gave  her,  as  I  have  said,  opportunity  to 
turn  over  her  errand  afresh,  but  enabled  her  to  say 
to  herself,  as  she  had  often  said  before,  that  though 
Lucretia  had  no  taste,  she  had  some  very  good  things, 
and  to  wonder  both  how  she  had  kept  them  so  well, 
and  how  she  had  originally  got  them.  Mrs.  Daintry 
knew  that  they  proceeded  from  her  mother  and  her 
aunts,  who  had  been  supposed  to  distribute  among 
the  children  of  the  second  generation  the  accumula- 
tions of  the  old  house  in  Federal  Street,  where 
many  Daintrys  had  been  born  in  the  early  part  of 
the  century.  Of  course  she  knew  nothing  of  the 
principles  on  which  the  distribution  had  been  made, 
but  all  she  could  say  was  that  Lucretia  had  evidently 
been  first  in  the  field.  There  was  apparently  no 
limit  to  what  had  come  to  her.  Mrs.  Daintry  was 
not  obliged  to  look,  to  assure  herself  that  there  was 
another  clock  in  the  back  parlor,  —  which  would  seem 
to  indicate  that  all  the  clocks  had  fallen  to  Lucretia. 
She  knew  of  four  other  timepieces  in  other  parts 
of  the  house,  for  of  course  in  former  years  she  had 
often  been  up  stairs ;  it  was  only  in  comparatively 
recent  times  that  she  had  renounced  that  practice. 
There  had  been  a  period  when  she  ascended  to 
the  second  story  as  a  matter  of  course,  without 
asking  leave.  On  seeing  that  her  sister-in-law  was 


280  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

in  neither  of  the  parlors,  she  mounted  and  talked  with 
Lucretia  at  the  door  of  her  bedroom,  if  it  happened 
to  be  closed.  And  there  had  been  another  season 
when  she  stood  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase,  and, 
lifting  her  voice,  inquired  of  Miss  Daintry  —  who 
called  down  with  some  shrillness  in  return  —  whether 
she  might  climb,  while  the  maid-servant,  wandering 
away  with  a  vague  cachinnation,  left  her  to  her  own 
devices.  But  both  of  these  phases  belonged  to  the 
past.  Lucretia  never  came  into  her  bedroom  to-day, 
nor  did  she  presume  to  penetrate  into  Lucretia's ; 
so  that  she  did  not  know  for  a  long  time  whether 
she  had  renewed  her  chintz,  nor  whether  she  had 
hung  in  that  bower  the  large  photograph  of  Flor- 
imond,  presented  by  Mrs.  Daintry  herself  to  his  aunt, 
which  had  been  placed  in  neither  of  the  parlors. 
Mrs.  Daintry  would  have  given  a  good  deal  to  know 
whether  this  memento  had  been  honored  with  a 
place  in  her  sister-in-law's  "  chamber,"  —  it  was  by 
this  name,  on  each  side,  that  these  ladies  designated 
their  sleeping-apartment ;  but  she  could  not  bring 
herself  to  ask  directly,  for  it  would  be  embarrassing 
to  learn  —  what  was  possible  —  that  Lucretia  had  not 
paid  the  highest  respect  to  Florimond's  portrait. 
The  point  was  cleared  up  by  its  being  revealed  to 
her  accidentally  that  the  photograph,  —  an  expensive 
and  very  artistic  one,  taken  in  Paris,  —  had  been 
relegated  to  the  spare-room,  or  guest-chamber.  Miss 
Daintry  was  very  hospitable,  and  constantly  had 
friends  of  her  own  sex  staying  with  her.  They  were 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  281 

very  apt  to  be  young  women  in  their  twenties ;  and 
one  of  them  had  remarked  to  Mrs.  Daintry  that  her 
son's  portrait  —  he  must  be  wonderfully  handsome  — 
was  the  first  thing  she  saw  when  she  woke  up  in  the 
morning.  Certainly  Florimond  was  handsome ;  but 
his  mother  had  a  lurking  suspicion  that,  in  spite  of 
his  beauty,  his  aunt  was  not  fond  of  him.  She  doubt- 
less thought  he  ought  to  come  back  and  settle  down 
in  Boston ;  he  was  the  first  of  the  Daintrys  who  had 
had  so  much  in  common  with  Paris.  Mrs.  Daintry 
knew  as  a  fact  that,  twenty-eight  years  before,  Lucre- 
tia,  whose  opinions  even  at  that  period  were  already 
wonderfully  formed,  had  not  approved  of  the  roman- 
tic name  which,  in  a  moment  of  pardonable  weak- 
ness, she  had  conferred  upon  her  rosy  babe.  The 
spinster  (she  had  been  as  much  of  a  spinster  at 
twenty  as  she  was  to-day)  had  accused  her  of  mak- 
ing a  fool  of  the  child.  Every  one  was  reading  old 
ballads  in  Boston  then,  and  Mrs.  Daintry  had  found 
the  name  in  a  ballad.  It  doubled  any  anxiety  she 
might  feel  with  regard  to  her  present  business  to 
think  that,  as  certain  foreign  newspapers  which  her 
son  sent  her  used  to  say  about  ambassadors,  Flori- 
mond was  perhaps  not  a  persona  grata  to  his  aunt. 
She  reflected,  however,  that  if  his  fault  were  in  his 
absenting  himself,  there  was  nothing  that  would 
remedy  it  so  effectively  as  his  coming  home.  She 
reflected,  too,  that  if  she  and  Lucretia  no  longer 
took  liberties  with  each  other,  there  was  still  some- 
thing a  little  indiscreet  in  her  purpose  this  morning. 


282  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

But  it  fortified  and  consoled  her  for  everything  to 
remember,  as  she  sat  looking  at  the  empire  clock, 
which  was  a  very  handsome  one,  that  her  husband 
at  least  had  been  disinterested. 

Miss  Daintry  found  her  visitor  in  this  attitude,  and 
thought  it  was  an  expression  of  impatience ;  which 
led  her  to  explain  that  she  had  been  on  the  roof  of 
her  house  with  a  man  who  had  come  to  see  about 
repairing  it.  She  had  walked  all  over  it,  and  peeped 
over  the  cornice,  and  not  been  in  the  least  dizzy ;  and 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  one  ought  to  know  a 
great  deal  more  about  one's  roof  than  was  usual. 

"I  am  sure  you  have  never  been  over  yours,"  she 
said  to  her  sister-in-law. 

Mrs.  Daintry  confessed  with  some  embarrassment 
that  she  had  not,  and  felt,  as  she  did  so,  that  she  was 
superficial  and  slothful.  It  annoyed  her  to  reflect 
that  while  she  supposed,  in  her  new  house,  she  had 
thought  of  everything,  she  had  not  thought  of  this 
important  feature.  There  was  no  one  like  Lucretia 
for  giving  one  such  reminders. 

"I  will  send  Florimond  up  when  he  comes,"  she 
said  ;  "  he  will  tell  me  all  about  it." 

"  Do  you  suppose  he  knows  about  roofs,  except 
tumbledown  ones,  in  his  little  pictures  ?  I  am 
afraid  it  will  make  him  giddy."  This  had  been 
Miss  Daintry's  rejoinder,  and  the  tone  of  it  was  not 
altogether  reassuring.  She  was  nearly  fifty  years 
old ;  she  had  a  plain,  fresh,  delightful  face,  and  in 
whatever  part  of  the  world  she  might  have  been  met, 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  283 

an  attentive  observer  of  American  life  would  not 
have  had  the  least  difficulty  in  guessing  what  phase 
of  it  she  represented.  She  represented  the  various 
and  enlightened  activities  which  cast  their  rapid 
shuttle  —  in  the  comings  and  goings  of  eager  workers 
—  from  one  side  to  the  other  of  Boston  Common. 
She  had  in  an  eminent  degree  the  physiognomy, 
the  accent,  the  costume,  the  conscience,  and  the 
little  eye-glass,  of  her  native  place.  She  had  never 
sacrificed  to  the  graces,  but  she  inspired  unlimited 
confidence.  Moreover,  if  she  was  thoroughly  in 
sympathy  with  the  New  England  capital,  she  re- 
served her  liberty  ;  she  had  a  great  charity,  but  she 
was  independent  and  witty ;  and  if  she  was  as  earnest 
as  other  people,  she  was  not  quite  so  serious.  Her 
voice  was  a  little  masculine ;  and  it  had  been  said  of 
her  that  she  didn't  care  in  the  least  how  she  looked. 
This  was  far  from  true,  for  she  would  not  for  the 
world  have  looked  better  than  she  thought  was  right 
for  so  plain  a  woman. 

Mrs.  Daintry  was  fond  of  calculating  consequences ; 
but  she  was  not  a  coward,  and  she  arrived  at  her 
business  as  soon  as  possible. 

"  You  know  that  Floriniond  sails  on  the  20th  of 
this  month.  He  will  get  home  by  the  1st  of 
December." 

"  Oh,  yes,  my  dear,  I  know  it ;  everybody  is  talking 
about  it.  I  have  heard  it  thirty  times.  That 's  where 
Boston  is  so  small,"  Lucretia  Daintry  remarked. 

"Well,  it's  big  enough  for  me,"  said  her  sister-in- 


284  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

law.  "And  of  course  people  notice  his  coming 
back ;  it  shows  that  everything  that  has  been  said 
is  false,  and  that  he  really  does  like  us." 

"  He  likes  his  mother,  I  hope ;  about  the  rest  I 
don't  know  that  it  matters." 

"  Well,  it  certainly  will  be  pleasant  to  have  him," 
said  Mrs.  Daintry,  who  was  not  content  with  her 
companion's  tone,  and  wished  to  extract  from  her 
some  recognition  of  the  importance  of  Florimond's 
advent.  "  It  will  prove  how  unjust  so  much  of  the 
talk  has  been." 

"  My  dear  woman,  I  don't  know  anything  about  the 
talk.  We  make  too  much  fuss  about  everything. 
Florimond  was  an  infant  when  I  last  saw  him." 

This  was  open  to  the  interpretation  that  too  much 
fuss  had  been  made  about  Florimond,  —  an  idea 
that  accorded  ill  with  the  project  that  had  kept  Mrs. 
Daintry  waiting  a  quarter  of  an  hour  while  her 
hostess  walked  about  on  the  roof.  But  Miss  Dain- 
try continued,  and  in  a  moment  gave  her  sister-in- 
law  the  best  opportunity  she  could  have  hoped  for. 
"  I  don't  suppose  he  will  bring  with  him  either  salva- 
tion or  the  other  thing ;  and  if  he  has  decided  to 
winter  among  the  bears,  it  will  matter  much  more  to 
him  than  to  any  one  else.  But  I  shall  be  very  glad 
to  see  him  if  he  behaves  himself ;  and  I  need  n't  tell 
you  that  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  for  him  — " 
and  Miss  Daintry,  tightening  her  lips  together  a 
little,  paused,  suiting  her  action  to  the  idea  that 
professions  were  usually  humbug. 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  285 

"  There  is  indeed  something  you  can  do  for  him," 
her  sister-in-law  hastened  to  respond;  "or  some- 
thing you  can  do  for  me,  at  least/'  she  added,  more 
discreetly. 

"  Call  it  for  both  of  you.  What  is  it  ? "  and  Miss 
Daintry  put  on  her  eyeglass. 

"  I  know  you  like  to  do  kindnesses,  when  they 
are  real  ones ;  and  you  almost  always  have  some  one 
staying  with  you  for  the  winter." 

Miss  Daintry  stared.  "  Do  you  want  to  put  him 
to  live  with  me  ?  " 

"  No,  indeed !  Do  you  think  I  could  part  with 
him  ?  It 's  another  person,  —  a  lady !  " 

"  A  lady !  Is  he  going  to  bring  a  woman  with 
him?" 

"My  dear  Lucretia,  you  won't  wait.  I  want  to 
make  it  as  pleasant  for  him  as  possible.  In  that 
case  he  may  stay  longer.  He  has  promised  three 
months ;  but  I  should  so  like  to  keep  him  till  the 
summer.  It  would  make  me  very  happy." 

"  Well,  my  dear,  keep  him,  then,  if  you  can." 

"  But  I  can't,  unless  I  am  helped." 

"  And  you  want  me  to  help  you  ?  Tell  me  what  I 
must  do.  Should  you  wish  me  to  make  love  to 
him?" 

Mrs.  Daintry's  hesitation  at  this  point  was  almost 
as  great  as  if  she  had  found  herself  obliged  to  say 
yes.  She  was  well  aware  that  what  she  had  come  to 
suggest  was  very  delicate;  but  it  seemed  to  her  at 
the  present  moment  more  delicate  than  ever.  Still, 


286  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

her  cause  was  good,  because  it  was  the  cause  of  mater- 
nal devotion.  "  What  I  should  like  you  to  do  would 
be  to  ask  Eachel  Torrance  to  spend  the  winter  with 
you." 

Miss  Daintry  had  not  sat  so  much  on  committees 
without  getting  used  to  queer  proposals,  and  she  had 
long  since  ceased  to  waste  time  in  expressing  a  vain 
surprise.  Her  method  was  Socratic  ;  she  usually  en- 
tangled her  interlocutor  in  a  net  of  questions. 

"  Ah,  do  you  want  her  to  make  love  to  him  ? " 

"No,  I  don't  want  any  love  at  all.  In  such  a 
matter  as  that  I  want  Floriinond  to  be  perfectly  free. 
But  Kachel  is  such  an  attractive  girl;  she  is  so 
artistic  and  so  bright." 

"  I  don't  doubt  it ;  but  I  can't  invite  all  the 
attractive  girls  in  the  country.  Why  don't  you  ask 
her  yourself  ? " 

"  It  would  be  too  marked.  And  then  Florimond 
might  not  like  her  in  the  same  house ;  he  would 
have  too  much  of  her.  Besides,  she  is  no  relation  of 
mine,  you  know ;  the  cousinship  —  such  as  it  is,  it  is 
not  very  close  —  is  on  your  side.  I  have  reason  to 
believe  she  would  like  to  come  ;  she  knows  so  little 
of  Boston,  and  admires  it  so  much.  It  is  astonishing 
how  little  idea  the  New  York  people  have.  She 
would  be  different  from  any  one  here,  and  that 
would  make  a  pleasant  change  for  Florimond.  She 
was  in  Europe  so  much  when  she  was  young.  She 
speaks  French  perfectly,  and  Italian,  I  think,  too ; 
and  she  was  brought  up  in  a  kind  of  artistic  way. 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  287 

Her  father  never  did  anything;  but  even  when  he 
had  n't  bread  to  give  his  children,  he  always  arranged 
to  have  a  studio,  and  they  gave  musical  parties. 
That  'a  the  way  Eachel  was  brought  up.  But  they 
tell  me  that  it  hasn't  in  the  least  spoiled  her;  it 
has  only  made  her  very  familiar  with  life." 

"Familiar  with  humbug!"  Miss  Dain try  ejacu- 
lated. 

"My  dear  Lucretia,  I  assure  you  she  is  a  very 
good  girl,  or  I  never  would  have  proposed  such  a 
plan  as  this.  She  paints  very  well  herself,  and  tries 
to  sell  her  pictures.  They  are  dreadfully  poor,  —  I 
don't  mean  the  pictures,  but  Mrs.  Torrance  and  the 
rest,  —  and  they  live  in  Brooklyn,  in  some  second-rate 
boarding-house.  With  that,  Rachel  has  everything 
about  her  that  would  enable  her  to  appreciate  Boston. 
Of  course  it  would  be  a  real  kindness,  because  there 
would  be  one  less  to  pay  for  at  the  boarding-house. 
You  haven't  a  son,  so  you  can't  understand  how  a 
mother  feels.  I  want  to  prepare  everything,  to  have 
everything  pleasantly  arranged.  I  want  to  deprive 
him  of  every  pretext  for  going  away  before  the  sum- 
mer; because  in  August  —  I  don't  know  whether  I 
have  told  you  —  I  have  a  kind  of  idea  of  going  back 
with  him  myself.  I  am  so  afraid  he  will  miss  the  ar- 
tistic side.  I  don't  mind  saying  that  to  you,  Lucretia, 
for  I  have  heard  you  say  yourself  that  you  thought  it 
had  been  left  out  here.  Floriinond  might  go  and  see 
Eachel  Torrance  every  day  if  he  liked ;  of  course,  be- 
ing his  cousin,  and  calling  her  Eachel,  it  couldn't 


288  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

attract  any  particular  attention.  I  should  n't  much 
care  if  it  did,"  Mrs.  Daintry  went  on,  borrowing  a  cer- 
tain bravado,  that  in  calmer  moments  was  eminently 
foreign  to  her  nature,  from  the  impunity  with  which 
she  had  hitherto  proceeded.  Her  project,  as  she  heard 
herself  unfold  it,  seemed  to  hang  together  so  well  that 
she  felt  something  of  the  intoxication  of  success.  "  I 
should  n't  care  if  it  did,"  she  repeated,  "  so  long  as 
Florimond  had  a  little  of  the  conversation  that  he  is 
accustomed  to,  and  I  was  not  in  perpetual  fear  of  his 
starting  off." 

Miss  Daintry  had  listened  attentively  while  her 
sister-in-law  spoke,  with  eager  softness,  passing  from 
point  to  point  with  a  crescendo  of  lucidity,  like  a 
woman  who  had  thought  it  all  out,  and  had  the  con- 
sciousness of  many  reasons  on  her  side.  There  had 
been  momentary  pauses,  of  which  Lucretia  had  not 
taken  advantage,  so  that  Mrs.  Daintry  rested  at  last 
in  the  enjoyment  of  a  security  that  was  almost  com- 
plete, and  that  her  companion's  first  question  was  not 
of  a  nature  to  dispel. 

"  It 's  so  long  since  I  have  seen  her.  Is  she  pretty  ?" 
Miss  Daintry  inquired. 

"She  is  decidedly  striking;  she  has  magnificent 
hair  ! "  her  visitor  answered,  almost  with  enthusiasm. 

"  Do  you  want  Florimond  to  marry  her  ? " 

This,  somehow,  was  less  pertinent.  "  Ah,  no,  my 
dear,"  Mrs.  Daintry  rejoined,  very  judicially.  "  That 
is  not  the  kind  of  education  —  the  kind  of  milieu  — 
one  would  wish  for  the  wife  of  one's  son."  She  knew, 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  289 

moreover,  that  her  sister-in-law  knew  her  opinion 
about  the  marriage  of  young  people.  It  was  a  sac- 
rament more  high  and  holy  than  any  words  could 
express,  the  propriety  and  timeliness  of  which  lay 
deep  in  the  hearts  of  the  contracting  parties,  below 
all  interference  from  parents  and  friends ;  it  was  an 
inspiration  from  above,  and  she  would  no  more  have 
thought  of  laying  a  train  to  marry  her  son,  than  she 
would  have  thought  of  breaking  open  his  letters. 
More  relevant  even  than  this,  however,  was  the  fact 
that  she  did  not  believe  he  would  wish  to  make  a 
wife  of  a  girl  from  a  slipshod  family  in  Brooklyn, 
however  little  he  might  care  to  lose  sight  of  the  artis- 
tic side.  It  will  be  observed  that  she  gave  Flori- 
mond  the  credit  of  being  a  very  discriminating  young 
man ;  and  she  indeed  discriminated  for  him  in  cases 
in  which  she  would  not  have  presumed  to  discrimi- 
nate for  herself. 

"  My  dear  Susan,  you  are  simply  the  most  im- 
moral woman  in  Boston  ! "  These  were  the  words  of 
which,  after  a  moment,  her  sister-in-law  delivered 
herself. 

Mrs.  Daintry  turned  a  little  pale.  "Don't  you 
think  it  would  be  right  ? "  she  asked  quickly. 

"  To  sacrifice  the  poor  girl  to  Florimond's  amuse- 
ment ?  What  has  she  done  that  you  should  wish 
to  play  her  such  a  trick  ? "  Miss  Daintry  did  not 
look  shocked:  she  never  looked  shocked,  for  even 
when  she  was  annoyed  she  was  never  frightened ; 
but  after  a  moment  she  broke  into  a  loud,  uncompro- 

19 


290  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

mising  laugh,  —  a  laugh  which  her  sister-in-law  knew 
of  old,  and  regarded  as  a  peculiarly  dangerous  form 
of  criticism. 

"  I  don't  see  why  she  should  be  sacrificed.  She 
would  have  a  lovely  time  if  she  were  to  come  on. 
She  would  consider  it  the  greatest  kindness  to  be 
asked." 

"  To  be  asked  to  come  and  amuse  Florimond  ? " 

Mrs.  Daintry  hesitated  a  moment.  "I  don't  see 
why  she  should  object  to  that.  Florimond  is  cer- 
tainly not  beneath  a  person's  notice.  Why,  Lucretia, 
you  speak  as  if  there  were  something  disagreeable 
about  Florimond." 

"  My  dear  Susan,"  said  Miss  Daintry,  "  I  am  will- 
ing to  believe  that  he  is  the  first  young  man  of  his 
time ;  but,  all  the  same,  it  is  n't  a  thing  to  do." 

"  Well,  I  have  thought  of  it  in  every  possible  way, 
and  I  haven't  seen  any  harm  in  it.  It  isn't  as  if 
she  were  giving  up  anything  to  come." 

"  You  have  thought  of  it  too  much,  perhaps.  Stop 
thinking  for  a  while.  I  should  have  imagined  you 
were  more  scrupulous." 

Mrs.  Daintry  was  silent  a  moment ;  she  took  her 
sister-in-law's  asperity  very  meekly,  for  she  felt  that 
if  she  had  been  wrong  in  what  she  proposed,  she  de- 
served a  severe  judgment.  But  why  was  she  wrong  ? 
She  clasped  her  hands  in  her  lap  and  rested  her  eyes 
with  extreme  seriousness  upon  Lucretia's  little  pince- 
nez,  inviting  her  to  judge  her,  and  too  much  inter- 
ested in  having  the  question  of  her  culpability 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  291 

settled  to  care  whether  or  no  she  were  hurt.  "It 
is  very  hard  to  know  what  is  right,"  she  said  pres- 
ently. "  Of  course  it  is  only  a  plan ;  I  wondered 
how  it  would  strike  you." 

"You  had  better  leave  Florimond  alone,"  Miss 
Daintry  answered.  "I  don't  see  why  you  should 
spread  so  many  carpets  for  him.  Let  him  shift  for 
himself.  If  he  doesn't  like  Boston,  Boston  can 
spare  him." 

"You  are  not  nice  about  him;  no,  you  are  not, 
Lucretia ! "  Mrs.  Daintry  cried,  with  a  slight  tremor 
in  her  voice. 

"  Of  course  I  am  not  as  nice  as  you,  —  he  is  not 
my  son ;  but  I  am  trying  to  be  nice  about  Eachel 
Torrance." 

"  I  am  sure  she  would  like  him,  —  she  would  de- 
light in  him,"  Mrs.  Daintry  broke  out. 

"  That 's  just  what  I  'm  afraid  of;  I  could  n't  stand 
that." 

"  Well,  Lucretia,  I  am  not  convinced,"  Mrs.  Dain- 
try said,  rising,  with  perceptible  coldness.  "  It  is  very 
hard  to  be  sure  one  is  not  unjust.  Of  course  I  shall 
not  expect  you  to  send  for  her ;  but  I  shall  think  of 
her  with  a  good  deal  of  compassion,  all  winter,  in 
that  dingy  place  in  Brooklyn.  And  if  you  have  some 
one  else  with  you  —  and  I  am  sure  you  will,  because 
you  always  do,  unless  you  remain  alone  on  purpose, 
this  year,  to  put  me  in  the  wrong,  —  if  you  have  some 
one  else  I  shall  keep  saying  to  myself:  'Well,  after 
all,  it  might  have  been  Eachel ! ' " 


292  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

Miss  Daiutry  gave  another  of  her  loud  laughs  at 
the  idea  that  she  might  remain  alone  "  on  purpose." 
"  I  shall  have  a  visitor,  but  it  will  be  some  one  who 
will  not  amuse  Florimond  in  the  least.  If  he  wants 
to  go  away,  it  won't  be  for  anything  in  this  house 
that  he  will  stay." 

"I  really  don't  see  why  you  should  hate  him." 
said  poor  Mrs.  Daintry. 

"Where  do  you  find  that?  On  the  contrary,  I 
appreciate  him  very  highly.  That 's  just  why  I  think 
it  very  possible  that  a  girl  like  Eachel  Torrance  — 
an  odd,  uninstructed  girl,  who  has  n't  had  great  ad- 
vantages —  may  fall  in  love  with  him  and  break  her 
heart." 

Mrs.  Daintry's  clear  eyes  expanded.  "Is  that 
what  you  are  afraid  of?" 

"  Do  you  suppose  my  solicitude  is  for  Florimond  ? 
An  accident  of  that  sort  —  if  she  were  to  show  him 
her  heels  at  the  end  —  might  perhaps  do  him  good. 
But  I  am  thinking  of  the.  girl,  since  you  say  you 
don't  want  him  to  marry  her." 

"  It  was  not  for  that  that  I  suggested  what  I  did. 
I  don't  want  him  to  marry  any  one  —  I  have  no  plans 
for  that,"  Mrs.  Daintry  said,  as  if  she  were  resenting 
an  imputation. 

"  Eachel  Torrance  least  of  all ! "  and  Miss  Daintry 
indulged  still  again  in  that  hilarity,  so  personal  to 
herself,  which  sometimes  made  the  subject  look  so 
little  jocular  to  others.  "  My  dear  Susan,  I  don't 
blame  you,"  she  said;  "for  I  suppose  mothers  are 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  293 

necessarily  unscrupulous.  But  that  is  why  the  rest 
of  us  should  hold  them  in  check." 

"It's  merely  an  assumption,  that  she  would  fall 
in  love  with  him,"  Mrs.  Daintry  continued,  with  a 
certain  majesty ;  "  there  is  nothing  to  prove  it,  and  I 
am  not  bound  to  take  it  for  granted." 

"In  other  words,  you  don't  care  if  she  should! 
Precisely;  that,  I  suppose,  is  your  rdle.  I  am  glad 
I  haven't  any  children;  it's  very  sophisticating. 
For  so  good  a  woman,  you  are  very  bad.  Yes,  you 
are  good,  Susan;  and  you  are  bad." 

"I  don't  know  that  I  pretend  to  be  particularly 
good,"  Susan  remarked,  with  the  warmth  of  one  who 
had  known  something  of  the  burden  of  such  a 
reputation,  as  she  moved  toward  the  door. 

"You  have  a  conscience,  and  it  will  wake  up," 
her  companion  returned.  "It  will  come  over  you 
in  the  watches  of  the  night  that  your  idea  was  —  as 
I  have  said  —  immoral." 

Mrs.  Daintry  paused  in  the  hall,  and  stood  there 
looking  at  Lucretia.  It  was  just  possible  that  she 
was  being  laughed  at,  for  Lucretia's  deepest  mirth  was 
sometimes  silent,  —  that  is,  one  heard  the  laughter 
several  days  later.  Suddenly  she  colored  to  the  roots 
of  her  hair,  as  if  the  conviction  of  her  error  had  come 
over  her.  Was  it  possible  she  had  been  corrupted  by 
an  affection  in  itself  so  pure  ?  "I  only  want  to  do 
right,"  she  said,  softly.  "I  would  rather  he  should 
never  come  home,  than  that  I  should  go  too  far." 

She  was  turning  away,  but  her  sister-in-law  held 


294  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

her  a  moment  and  kissed  her.  "  You  are  a  delightful 
woman,  but  I  won't  ask  Eachel  Torrance ! "  This 
was  the  understanding  on  which  they  separated. 


III. 

Miss  DAINTRY,  after  her  visitor  had  left  her,  recog- 
nized that  she  had  been  a  little  brutal ;  for  Susan's 
proposition  did  not  really  strike  her  as  so  heinous. 
Her  eagerness  to  protect  the  poor  girl  in  Brooklyn 
was  not  a  very  positive  quantity,  inasmuch  as  she 
had  an  impression  that  this  young  lady  was  on  the 
whole  very  well  able  to  take  care  of  herself.  What 
her  talk  with  Mrs.  Daintry  had  really  expressed  was 
the  lukewarmness  of  her  sentiment  with  regard  to 
Florimond.  She  had  no  wish  to  help  his  mother 
lay  carpets  for  him,  as  she  said.  Eightly  or  wrongly, 
she  had  a  conviction  that  he  was  selfish,  that  he  was 
spoiled,  that  he  was  conceited ;  and  she  thought 
Lucretia  Daintry  meant  for  better  things  than  the 
service  of  sugaring  for  the  young  man's  lips  the  pill 
of  a  long-deferred  visit  to  Boston.  It  was  quite 
indifferent  to  her  that  he  should  be  conscious,  in 
that  city,  of  unsatisfied  needs.  At  bottom,  she  had 
never  forgiven  him  for  having  sought  another  way 
of  salvation.  Moreover  she  had  a  strong  sense  of 
humor,  and  it  amused  her  more  than  a  little  that  her 
sister-in-law  —  of  all  women  in  Boston  —  should  have 
come  to  her  on  that  particular  errand.  It  completed 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  295 

the  irony  of  the  situation  that  one  should  frighten 
Mrs.  Daintry — just  a  little  —  about  what  she  had 
undertaken;  and  more  than  once  that  day  Lucretia 
had,  with  a  smile,  the  vision  of  Susan's  countenance 
as  she  remarked  to  her  that  she  was  immoral.  In 
reality,  and  speaking  seriously,  she  did  not  consider 
Mrs.  Daintry's  inspiration  unpardonable;  what  was 
very  positive  was  simply  that  she  had  no  wish  to 
invite  Eachel  Torrance  for  the  benefit  of  her  nephew. 
She  was  by  no  means  sure  that  she  should  like  the 
girl  for  her  own  sake,  and  it  was  still  less  apparent 
that  she  should  like  her  for  that  of  Florimond. 
With  all  this,  however,  Miss  Daintry  had  a  high 
love  of  justice ;  she  revised  her  social  accounts  from 
time  to  time,  to  see  that  she  had  not  cheated  any  one. 
She  thought  over  her  interview  with  Mrs.  Daintry 
the  next  day,  and  it  occurred  to  her  that  she  had 
been  a  little  unfair.  But  she  scarcely  knew  what 
to  do  to  repair  her  mistake,  by  which  Eachel  Tor- 
rance also  had  suffered,  perhaps ;  for  after  all,  if  it 
had  not  been  wicked  of  her  sister-in-law  to  ask  such 
a  favor,  it  had  at  least  been  cool ;  and  the  penance 
that  presented  itself  to  Lucretia  Daintry  did  not 
take  the  form  of  despatching  a  letter  to  Brooklyn. 
An  accident  came  to  her  help,  and  four  days  after 
the  conversation  I  have  narrated  she  wrote  her  a 
note,  which  explains  itself,  and  which  I  will  presently 
transcribe.  Meanwhile  Mrs.  Daiutry,  on  her  side, 
had  held  an  examination  of  her  heart;  and  though 
she  did  not  think  she  had  been  very  civilly  treated, 


296  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

the  result  of  her  reflections  was  to  give  her  a  fit  of 
remorse.  Lucretia  was  right:  she  had  been  any- 
thing but  scrupulous ;  she  had  skirted  the  edge  of 
an  abyss.  Questions  of  conduct  had  long  been 
familiar  to  her ;  and  the  cardinal  rule  of  life  in  her 
eyes  was  that  before  one  did  anything  which  in- 
volved in  any  degree  the  happiness  or  the  interest 
of  another,  one  should  take  one's  motives  out  of  the 
closet  in  which  they  are  usually  laid  away  and  give 
them  a  thorough  airing.  This  operation,  undertaken 
before  her  visit  to  Lucretia,  had  been  cursory  and 
superficial;  for  now  that  she  repeated  it,  she  dis- 
covered among  the  recesses  of  her  spirit  a  number 
of  nut-like  scruples  which  she  was  astonished  to 
think  she  should  have  overlooked.  She  had  really 
been  very  wicked,  and  there  was  no  doubt  about  her 
proper  penance.  It  consisted  of  a  letter  to  her  sister- 
in-law,  in  which  she  completely  disavowed  her  little 
project,  attributing  it  to  a  momentary  intermission  of 
her  reason.  She  saw  it  would  never  do,  and  she  was 
quite  ashamed  of  herself.  She  did  not  exactly  thank 
Miss  Daintry  for  the  manner  in  which  she  had  ad- 
monished her,  but  she  spoke  as  one  saved  from  a 
great  danger,  and  assured  her  relative  of  Mount  Yer- 
non  Place  that  she  should  not  soon  again  expose 
herself.  This  letter  crossed  with  Miss  Daintry's 
missive,  which  ran  as  follows :  — 

"My  DEAR  SUSAN,  —  I  have  been  thinking  over 
our  conversation  of  last  Tuesday,  and  I  am  afraid  I 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  297 

went  rather  too  far  in  my  condemnation  of  your  idea 
with  regard  to  Rachel  Torrance.  If  I  expressed 
myself  in  a  manner  to  wound  your  feelings,  I  can 
assure  you  of  my  great  regret.  Nothing  could  have 
been  farther  from  my  thoughts  than  the  belief  that 
you  are  wanting  in  delicacy.  I  know  very  well  that 
you  were  prompted  by  the  highest  sense  of  duty.  It 
is  possible,  however,  I  think,  that  your  sense  of  duty 
to  poor  Florimond  is  a  little  too  high.  You  think  of 
him  too  much  as  that  famous  dragon  of  antiquity,  — 
was  n't  it  in  Crete,  or  somewhere  ?  —  to  whom  young 
virgins  had  to  be  sacrificed.  It  may  relieve  your 
mind,  however,  to  hear  that  this  particular  virgin 
will  probably,  during  the  coming  winter,  be  provided 
for.  Yesterday,  at  Doll's,  where  I  had  gone  in  to 
look  at  the  new  pictures  (there  is  a  striking  Appleton 
Brown)  I  met  Pauline  Mesh,  whom  I  had  not  seen 
for  ages,  and  had  half  an  hour's  talk  with  her.  She 
seems  to  me  to  have  come  out  very  much  this  winter, 
and  to  have  altogether  a  higher  tone.  In  short,  she 
is  much  enlarged,  and  seems  to  want  to  take  an  in- 
terest in  something.  Of  course  you  will  say :  Has  she 
not  her  children  ?  But,  somehow,  they  don't  seem  to 
fill  her  life.  You  must  remember  that  they  are  very 
small  as  yet,  to  fill  anything.  Anyway,  she  men- 
tioned to  me  her  great  disappointment  in  having  had 
to  give  up  her  sister,  who  was  to  have  come  on  from 
Baltimore  to  spend  the  greater  part  of  the  winter. 
Eosalie  is  very  pretty,  and  Pauline  expected  to  give 
a  lot  of  Germans,  and  make  things  generally  pleasant. 


298  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

I  should  n't  wonder  if  she  thought  something  might 
happen  that  would  make  Eosalie  a  fixture  in  our 
city.  She  would  have  liked  this  immensely;  for, 
whatever  Pauline's  faults  may  be,  she  has  plenty  of 
family  feeling.  But  her  sister  has  suddenly  got  en- 
gaged in  Baltimore  (I  believe  it 's  much  easier  than 
here),  so  that  the  visit  has  fallen  through.  Pauline 
seemed  to  be  quite  in  despair,  for  she  had  made  all 
sorts  of  beautifications  in  one  of  her  rooms,  on  pur- 
pose for  Eosalie ;  and  not  only  had  she  wasted  her 
labor  (you  know  how  she  goes  into  those  things, 
whatever  we  may  think,  sometimes,  of  her  taste),  but 
she  spoke  as  if  it  would  make  a  great  difference  in 
her  winter ;  said  she  should  suffer  a  great  deal  from 
loneliness.  She  says  Boston  is  no  place  for  a  mar- 
ried woman,  standing  on  her  own  merits ;  she  can't 
have  any  sort  of  time  unless  she  hitches  herself  to 
some  attractive  girl  who  will  help  her  to  pull  the 
social  car.  You  know  that  is  ri't  what  every  one 
says,  and  how  much  talk  there  has  been  the  last  two 
or  three  winters  about  the  frisky  young  matrons. 
"Well,  however  that  may  be,  I  don't  pretend  to  know 
much  about  it,  not  being  in  the  married  set.  Pauline 
spoke  as  if  she  were  really  quite  high  and  dry,  and  I 
felt  so  sorry  for  her  that  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me 
to  say  something  about  Rachel  Torrance.  I  remem- 
bered that  she  is  related  to  Donald  Mesh  in  about 
the  same  degree  as  she  is  to  me,  —  a  degree  nearer, 
therefore,  than  to  Florimond.  Pauline  did  n't  seem 
to  think  much  of  the  relationship,  —  it 's  so  remote ; 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  299 

but  when  I  told  her  that  Eachel  (strange  as  it  might 
appear)  would  probably  be  thankful  for  a  season  in 
Boston,  and  might  be  a  good  substitute  for  Eosalie, 
why  she  quite  jumped  at  the  idea.  She  has  never 
seen  her,  but  she  knows  who  she  is,  —  fortunately, 
for  I  could  never  begin  to  explain.  She  seems  to 
think  such  a  girl  will  be  quite  a  novelty  in  this 
place.  I  don't  suppose  Pauline  can  do  her  any  par- 
ticular harm,  from  what  you  tell  me  of  Miss  Torrance, 
and,  on  the  other  hand,  I  don't  know  that  she  could 
injure  Pauline.  She  is  certainly  very  kind  (Pauline, 
of  course),  and  I  have  no  doubt  she  will  immediately 
write  to  Brooklyn,  and  that  Eachel  will  come  on. 
Florimond  won't,  of  course,  see  as  much  of  her  as  if 
she  were  staying  with  me,  and  I  don't  know  that  he 
will  particularly  care  about  Pauline  Mesh,  who,  you 
know,  is  intensely  American ;  but  they  will  go  out  a 
great  deal,  and  he  will  meet  them  (if  he  takes  the 
trouble),  and  I  have  no  doubt  that  Eachel  will  take 
the  edge  off  the  east  wind  for  him.  At  any  rate  I 
have  perhaps  done  her  a  good  turn.  I  must  confess 
to  you  —  and  it  won't  surprise  you  —  that  I  was 
thinking  of  her,  and  not  of  him,  when  I  spoke  to 
Pauline.  Therefore  I  don't  feel  that  I  have  taken  a 
risk,  but  I  don't  much  care  if  I  have.  I  have  my 
views,  but  I  never  worry.  I  recommend  you  not  to 
do  so  either,  —  for  you  go,  I  know,  from  one  extreme 
to  the  other.  I  have  told  you  my  little  story ;  it 
was  on  my  mind.  Are  n't  you  glad  to  see  the  lovely 
snow  ?  Ever  affectionately  yours,  L.  D. 


300  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

"  P.  S.  The  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  con- 
vinced I  am  that  you  will  worry  now  about  the 
danger  for  Rachel.  Why  did  I  drop  the  poison  into 
your  mind  ?  Of  course  I  did  n't  say  a  word  about 
you  or  Florimond." 

This  epistle  reached  Mrs.  Daintry,  as  I  have  inti- 
mated, about  an  hour  after  her  letter  to  her  sister- 
in-law  had,  been  posted  ;  but  it  is  characteristic  of 
her  that  she  did  not  for  a  moment  regret  having 
made  a  retractation  rather  humble  in  form,  and 
which  proved,  after  all,  scarcely  to  have  been 
needed.  The  delight  of  having  done  that  duty- 
carried  her  over  the  sense  of  having  given  herself 
away.  Her  sister-in-law  spoke  from  knowledge 
when  she  wrote  that  phrase  about  Susan's  now  be- 
ginning to  worry  from  the  opposite  point  of  view. 
Her  conscience,  like  the  good  Homer,  might  some- 
times nod  ;  but  when  it  woke,  it  woke  with  a  start ; 
and  for  many  a  day  afterward  its  vigilance  was 
feverish.  For  the  moment,  her  emotions  were 
mingled.  She  thought  Lucretia  very  strange,  and 
that  she  was  scarcely  in  a  position  to  talk  about 
one's  going  from  one  extreme  to  the  other.  It 
was  good  news  to  her  that  Rachel  Torrance  would 
probably  be  on  the  ground  after  all,  and  she  was 
delighted  that  on  Lucretia  the  responsibility  of 
such  a  fact  should  rest.  This  responsibility  she 
now  already,  after  her  revulsion,  as  we  know,  re- 
garded as  grave ;  she  exhaled  an  almost  luxurious 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  301 

sigh,  when  she  thought  of  having  herself  escaped 
from  it.  What  she  did  not  quite  understand  was 
Lucretia's  "apology,  and  her  having,  even  if  Flori- 
mond's  happiness  were  not  her  motive,  taken  almost 
the  very  step  which  three  days  before  she  had  so 
severely  criticised.  This  was  puzzling,  for  Lucretia 
was  usually  so  consistent.  But  all  the  same  Mrs. 
Daintry  did  not  repent  of  her  own  penance ;  on 
the  contrary,  she  took  more  and  more  comfort  in 
it.  If,  with  that,  Eachel  Torrance  should  be  really 
useful,  it  would  be  delightful. 


IY. 


FLORIMOND  DAINTRY  had  stayed  at  home  for  three 
days  after  his  arrival ;  he  had  sat  close  to  the  fire 
in  his  slippers,  every  now  and  then  casting  a  glance 
over  his  shoulders  at  the  hard  white  world  which 
seemed  to  glare  at  him  from  the  other  side  of  the 
window-panes.  He  was  very  much  afraid  of  the 
cold,  and  he  was  not  in  a  hurry  to  go  out  and  meet 
it.  He  had  met  it,  on  disembarking  in  New  York, 
in  the  shape  of  a  wave  of  frozen  air,  which  had 
travelled  from  some  remote  point  in  the  west  (he 
was  told)  on  purpose,  apparently,  to  smite  him  in 
the  face.  That  portion  of  his  organism  tingled 
yet  with  it,  though  the  gasping,  bewildered  look 
which  sat  upon  his  features  during  the  first  few 
hours  had  quite  left  it.  I  am  afraid  it  will  be 


302  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

thought  he  was  a  young  man  of  small  courage ; 
and  on  a  point  so  delicate  I  do  not  hold  myself 
obliged  to  pronounce.  It  is  only  fair  to  add  that 
it  was  delightful  to  him  to  be  with  his  mother,  and 
that  they  easily  spent  three  days  in  talking.  More- 
over he  had  the  company  of  Joanna  and  her  chil- 
dren, who,  after  a  little  delay,  occasioned  apparently 
by  their  waiting  to  see  whether  he  would  not  first 
come  to  them,  had  arrived  in  a  body  and  had  spent 
several  hours.  As  regards  the  majority  of  them, 
they  had  repeated  this  visit  several  times  in  the 
three  days,  Joanna  being  obliged  to  remain  at  home 
with  the  two  younger  ones.  There  were  four  older 
ones,  and  their  grandmother's  house  was  open  to 
them  as  a  second  nursery.  The  first  day,  their 
Uncle  Florimond  thought  them  charming;  and  as 
he  had  brought  a  French  toy  for  each,  it  is  probable 
that  this  impression  was  mutual.  The  second  day, 
their  little  ruddy  bodies  and  woollen  clothes  seemed 
to  him  to  have  a  positive  odor  of  the  cold,  —  it 
was  disagreeable  to  him,  and  he  spoke  to  his  mother 
about  their  "  wintry  smell."  The  third  day  they  had 
become  very  familiar;  they  called  him  "Florry;" 
and  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that,  to  let  them 
loose  in  that  way  on  his  mother,  Joanna  must  be 
rather  wanting  in  delicacy,  —  not  mentioning  this 
deficiency,  however,  as  yet,  for  he  saw  that  his 
mother  was  not  prepared  for  it.  She  evidently 
thought  it  proper,  or  at  least  it  seemed  inevitable, 
either  that  she  should  be  round  at  Joanna's,  or  the 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  303 

children  should  be  round  in  Newbury  Street;  for 
"Joanna's"  evidently  represented  primarily  the 
sound  of  small,  loud  voices,  and  the  hard  breathing 
that  signalized  the  intervals  of  romps.  Florimond 
was  rather  disappointed  in  his  sister,  seeing  her 
after  a  long  separation  ;  he  remarked  to  his  mother 
that  she  seemed  completely  submerged.  As  Mrs. 
Daintry  spent  most  of  her  time  under  the  waves 
with  her  daughter,  she  had  grown  to  regard  this 
element  as  sufficiently  favorable  to  life,  and  was 
rather  surprised  when  Florimond  said  to  her  that 
he  was  sorry  to  see  she  and  his  sister  appeared  to 
have  been  converted  into  a  pair  of  bonnes  d'enfants. 
Afterward,  however,  she  perceived  what  he  meant ; 
she  was  not  aware,  until  he  called  her  attention  to  it, 
that  the  little  Merrimans  took  up  an  enormous  place 
in  the  intellectual  economy  of  two  households.  "  You 
ought  to  remember  that  they  exist  for  you,  and  not 
you  for  them,"  Florimond  said  to  her  in  a  tone  of 
friendly  admonition ;  and  he  remarked  on  another 
occasion  that  the  perpetual  presence  of  children  was 
a  great  injury  to  conversation,  —  it  kept  it  down  so 
much ;  and  that  in  Boston  they  seemed  to  be  present 
even  when  they  were  absent,  inasmuch  as  most  of 
the  talk  was  about  them.  Mrs.  Daintry  did  not  stop 
to  ask  herself  what  her  son  knew  of  Boston,  leaving 
it  years  before  as  a  boy,  and  not  having  so  much  as 
looked  out  of  the  window  since  his  return ;  she  was 
taken  up  mainly  with  noting  certain  little  habits  of 
speech  which  he  evidently  had  formed,  and  in  won- 


304  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

dering  how  they  would  strike  his  fellow-citizens. 
He  was  very  definite  and  trenchant;  he  evidently 
knew  perfectly  what  he  thought;  and  though  his 
manner  was  not  defiant,  —  he  had,  perhaps,  even  too 
many  of  the  forms  of  politeness,  as  if  sometimes,  for 
mysterious  reasons,  he  were  playing  upon  you,  —  the 
tone  in  which  he  uttered  his  opinions  did  not  appear 
exactly  to  give  you  the  choice.  And  then  appar- 
ently he  had  a  great  many;  there  was  a  moment 
when  Mrs.  Daintry  vaguely  foresaw  that  the  little 
house  in  Newbury  Street  would  be  more  crowded 
with  Florimond's  views  than  it  had  ever  been 'with 
Joanna's  children.  She  hoped  very  much  people 
would  like  him,  and  she  hardly  could  see  why  they 
should  fail  to  find  him  agreeable.  To  herself  he  was 
sweeter  than  any  grandchild ;  he  was  as  kind  as  if 
he  had  been  a  devoted  parent.  Florimond  had  but  a 
small  acquaintance  with  his  brother-in-law ;  but  after 
he  had  been  at  home  forty-eight  hours  he  found  that 
he  bore  Arthur  Merriman  a  grudge,  and  was  ready  to 
think  rather  ill  of  him,  —  having  a  theory  that  he 
ought  to  have  held  up  Joanna  and  interposed  to  save 
her  mother.  Arthur  Merriman  was  a  young  and 
brilliant  commission-merchant,  who  had  not  married 
Joanna  Daintry  for  the  sake  of  Florimond,  and,  doing 
an  active  business  all  day  in  East  Boston,  had  a 
perfectly  good  conscience  in  leaving  his  children's 
mother  and  grandmother  to  establish  their  terms  of 
intercourse. 

Florimond,  however,  did  not  particularly  wonder 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  305 

why  his  brother-in-law  had  not  been  round  to  bid 
him  welcome.  It  was  for  Mrs.  Daintry  that  this 
anxiety  was  reserved ;  and  what  made  it  worse  was 
her  uncertainty  as  to  whether  she  should  be  justified 
in  mentioning  the  subject  to  Joanna.  It  might 
wound  Joanna  to  suggest  to  her  that  her  husband 
was  derelict,  —  especially  if  she  did  not  think  so,  and 
she  certainly  gave  her  mother  no  opening ;  and  on 
the  other  hand,  Florimond  might  have  ground  for 
complaint  if  Arthur  should  continue  not  to  notice 
him.  Mrs.  Daintry  earnestly  desired  that  nothing  of 
this  sort  should  happen,  and  took  refuge  in  the  hope 
that  Florimond  would  have  adopted  the  foreign 
theory  of  visiting,  in  accordance  with  which  the  new- 
comer was  to  present  himself  first.  Meanwhile  the 
young  man,  who  had  looked  upon  a  meeting  with  his 
brother-in-law  as  a  necessity  rather  than  a  privilege, 
was  simply  conscious  of  a  reprieve ;  and  up  in  Claren- 
don Street,  as  Mrs.  Daintry  said,  it  never  occurred  to 
Arthur  Merriman  to  take  this  social  step,  nor  to  his 
wife  to  propose  it  to  him.  Mrs.  Merriman  simply 
took  for  granted  that  her  brother  would  be  round 
early  some  morning  to  see  the  children.  A  day  or 
two  later  the  couple  dined  at  her  mother's,  and  that 
virtually  settled  the  question.  It  is  true  that  Mrs. 
Daintry,  in  later  days,  occasionally  recalled  the  fact 
that,  after  all,  Joanna's  husband  never  had  called 
upon  Florimond ;  and  she  even  wondered  why  Flori- 
mond, who  sometimes  said  bitter  things,  had  not 
made  more  of  it.  The  matter  came  back  at  mo- 

20 


306  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

ments  when,  under  the  pressure  of  circumstances 
which,  it  must  be  confessed,  were  rare,  she  found 
herself  giving  assent  to  an  axiom  that  sometimes 
reached  her  ears.  This  axiom,  it  must  be  added,  did 
not  justify  her  in  the  particular  case  I  have  men- 
tioned, for  the  full  purport  of  it  was  that  the  queer- 
ness  of  Bostonians  was  collective,  not  individual. 

There  was  no  doubt,  however,  that  it  was  Mori- 
mond's  place  to  call  first  upon  his  aunt,  and  this  was 
a  duty  of  which  she  could  not  hesitate  to  remind 
him.  By  the  time  he  took  his  way  across  the  long 
expanse  of  the  new  land  and  up  the  charming  hill, 
which  constitutes  as  it  were,  the  speaking  face  of 
Boston,  the  temperature  either  had  relaxed,  or  he  had 
got  used,  even  in  his  mother's  hot  little  house,  to  his 
native  air.  He  breathed  the  bright  cold  sunshine 
with  pleasure;  he  raised  his  eyes  to  the  arching 
blueness,  and  thought  he  had  never  seen  a  dome  so 
magnificently  painted.  He  turned  his  head  this  way 
and  that,  as  he  walked  (now  that  he  had  recovered 
his  legs,  he  foresaw  that  he  should  walk  a  good  deal), 
and  freely  indulged  his  most  valued  organ,  the  organ 
that  had  won  him  such  reputation  as  he  already 
enjoyed.  In  the  little  artistic  circle  in  which  he 
moved  in  Paris,  Florimond  Daintry  was  thought  to 
have  a  great  deal  of  eye.  His  power  of  rendering 
was  questioned,  his  execution  had  been  called  pre- 
tentious and  feeble ;  but  a  conviction  had  somehow 
been  diffused  that  he  saw  things  with  extraordinary 
intensity.  No  one  could  tell  better  than  he  what  to 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  307 

paint,  and  what  not  to  paint,  even  though  his  inter- 
pretation were  sometimes  rather  too  sketchy.  It 
will  have  been  guessed  that  he  was  an  impressionist ; 
and  it  must  be  admitted  that  this  was  the  character 
in  which  he  proceeded  on  his  visit  to  Miss  Daintry. 
He  was  constantly  shutting  one  eye,  to  see  the  better 
with  the  other,  making  a  little  telescope  by  curving 
one  of  his  hands  together,  waving  these  members 
in  the  air  with  vague  pictorial  gestures,  pointing  at 
things  which,  when  people  turned  to  follow  his  direc- 
tion, seemed  to  mock  the  vulgar  vision  by  eluding  it. 
I  do  not  mean  that  he  practised  these  devices  as  he 
walked  along  Beacon  Street,  into  which  he  had  crossed 
shortly  after  leaving  his  mother's  house;  but  now 
that  he  had  broken  the  ice,  he  acted  quite  in  the 
spirit  of  the  reply  he  had  made  to  a  friend  in  Paris, 
shortly  before  his  departure,  who  asked  him  why 
he  was  going  back  to  America,  —  "I  am  going  to  see 
how  it  looks."  He  was  of  course  very  conscious  of 
his  eye ;  and  his  effort  to  cultivate  it  was  both  intui- 
tive and  deliberate.  He  spoke  of  it  freely,  as  he 
might  have  done  of  a  valuable  watch  or  a  horse.  He 
was  always  trying  to  get  the  visual  impression ;  ask- 
ing himself,  with  regard  to  such  and  such  an  object 
or  a  place,  of  what  its  "  character "  would  consist. 
There  is  no  doubt  he  really  saw  with  great  intensity ; 
and  the  reader  will  probably  feel  that  he  was  wel- 
come to  this  ambiguous  privilege.  It  was  not  impor- 
tant for  him  that  things  should  be  beautiful ;  what 
he  sought  to  discover  was  their  identity,  —  the  signs 


308  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

by  which  he  should  know  them.  He  began  this  in- 
quiry as  soon  as  he  stepped  into  Newbury  Street 
from  his  mother's  door,  and  he  was  destined  to  con- 
tinue it  for  the  first  few  weeks  of  his  stay  in  Boston. 
As  time  went  on,  his  attention  relaxed;  for  one 
could  n't  do  more  than  see,  as  he  said  to  his  mother 
and  another  person  ;  and  he  had  seen.  Then  the  nov- 
elty wore  off,  —  the  novelty  which  is  often  so  ab- 
surdly great  in  the  eyes  of  the  American  who  returns 
to  his  native  land  after  a  few  years  spent  in  the  for- 
eign element,  —  an  effect  to  be  accounted  for  only  on 
the  supposition  that  in  the  secret  parts  of  his  mind 
he  recognizes  the  aspect  of  life  in  Europe  as,  through 
long  heredity,  the  more  familiar ;  so  that  superficially, 
having  no  interest  to  oppose  it,  it  quickly  supplants 
the  domestic  type,  which,  upon  his  return,  becomes 
supreme,  but  with  its  credit  in  many  cases  apprecia- 
bly and  permanently  diminished.  Florimond  painted 
a  few  things  while  he  was  in  America,  though  he 
had  told  his  mother  he  had  come  home  to  rest ;  but 
when,  several  months  later,  in  Paris,  he  showed  his 
"notes,"  as  he  called  them,  to  a  friend,  the  young 
Frenchman  asked  him  if  Massachusetts  were  really 
so  much  like  Andalusia. 

There  was  certainly  nothing  Andalusian  in  the 
prospect  as  Florimond  traversed  the  artificial  bosom 
of  the  Back  Bay.  He  had  made  his  way  promptly 
into  Beacon  Street,  and  he  greatly  admired  that  vista. 
The  long  straight  avenue  lay  airing  its  newness  in 
the  frosty  day,  and  all  its  individual  facades,  with 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  309 

their  neat,  sharp  ornaments,  seemed  to  have  been 
scoured,  with  a  kind  of  friction,  by  the  hard,  salutary 
light.  Their  brilliant  browns  and  drabs,  their  rosy 
surfaces  of  brick,  made  a  variety  of  fresh,  violent 
tones,  such  as  Florimond  liked  to  memorize,  and  the 
large  clear  windows  of  their  curved  fronts  faced  each 
other,  across  the  street,  like  candid,  inevitable  eyes. 
There  was  something  almost  terrible  in  the  windows ; 
Florimond  had  forgotten  how  vast  and  clean  they 
were,  and  how,  in  their  sculptured  frames,  the  New 
England  air  seemed,  like  a  zealous  housewife,  to 
polish  and  preserve  them.  A  great  many  ladies  were 
looking  out,  and  groups  of  children,  in  the  drawing- 
rooms,  were  flattening  their  noses  against  the  trans- 
parent plate.  Here  and  there,  behind  it,  the  back 
of  a  statuette  or  the  symmetry  of  a  painted  vase, 
erect  on  a  pedestal,  presented  itself  to  the  street,  and 
enabled  the  passer  to  construct,  more  or  less,  the 
room  within,  —  its  frescoed  ceilings,  its  new  silk  sofas, 
its  untarnished  fixtures.  This  continuity  of  glass 
constituted  a  kind  of  exposure,  within  and  with- 
out, and  gave  the  street  the  appearance  of  an  enor- 
mous corridor,  in  which  the  public  and  the  private 
were  familiar  and  intermingled.  But  it  was  all  very 
cheerful  and  commodious,  and  seemed  to  speak  of 
diffused  wealth,  of  intimate  family  life,  of  comfort 
constantly  renewed.  All  sorts  of  things  in  the  region 
of  the  temperature  had  happened  during  the  few 
days  that  Florimond  had  been  in  the  country.  The 
cold  wave  had  spent  itself,  a  snowstorm  had  come 


310  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

and  gone,  and  the  air,  after  this  temporary  relaxa- 
tion, had  renewed  its  keenness.  The  snow,  which 
had  fallen  in  but  moderate  abundance,  was  heaped 
along  the  side  of  the  pavement ;  it  formed  a  radiant 
cornice  on  the  housetops,  and  crowned  the  windows 
with  a  plain  white  cap.  It  deepened  the  color  of 
everything  else,  made  all  surfaces  look  ruddy,  and 
at  a  distance  sent  into  the  air  a  thin,  delicate  mist, 
—  a  tinted  exhalation,  —  which  occasionally  softened 
an  edge.  The  upper  part  of  Beacon  Street  seemed  to 
Florimond  charming,  —  the  long,  wide,  sunny  slope, 
the  uneven  line  of  the  older  houses,  the  contrasted, 
differing,  bulging  fronts,  the  painted  bricks,  the  tidy 
facings,  the  immaculate  doors,  the  burnished  silver 
plates,  the  denuded  twigs  of  the  far  extent  of  the 
Common,  on  the  other  side ;  and  to  crown  the  emi- 
nence and  complete  the  picture,  high  in  the  air,  poised 
in  the  right  place,  over  everything  that  clustered  be- 
low, the  most  felicitous  object  in  Boston,  —  the  gilded 
dome  of  the  State  House.  It  was  in  the  shadow  of 
this  monument,  as  we  know,  that  Miss  Daintry  lived ; 
and  Florimond,  who  was  always  lucky,  had  the  good 
fortune  to  find  her  at  home. 


V. 

IT  may  seem  that  I  have  assumed  on  the  part  of 
the  reader  too  great  a  curiosity  about  the  impressions 
of  this  young  man,  who  was  not  very  remarkable, 
and  who  has  not  even  the  recommendation  of  being 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  311 

the  hero  of  our  perhaps  too  descriptive  tale.  The 
reader  will  already  have  discovered  that  a  hero  fails 
us  here ;  but  if  I  go  on  at  all  risks  to  say  a  few  words 
about  Florimond,  he  will  perhaps  understand  the 
better  why  this  part  has  not  been  filled.  Miss 
Daintry's  nephew  was  not  very  original ;  it  was  his 
own  illusion  that  he  had  in  a  considerable  degree 
the  value  of  rareness.  Even  this  youthful  conceit 
was  not  rare,  for  it  was  not  of  heroic  proportions, 
and  was  liable  to  lapses  and  discouragements.  He 
was  a  fair,  slim,  civil  young  man,  and  you  would 
never  have  guessed  from  his  appearance  that  he 
was  an  impressionist.  He  was  neat  and  sleek  and 
quite  anti-Bohemian,  and  in  spite  of  his  looking 
about  him  as  he  walked,  his  figure  was  much  more 
in  harmony  with  the  Boston  landscape  than  he 
supposed.  He  was  a  little  vain,  a  little  affected,  a 
little  pretentious,  a  little  good-looking,  a  little  amus- 
ing, a  little  spoiled,  and  at  times  a  little  tiresome.  If 
he  was  disagreeable,  however,  it  was  also  only  a  little ; 
he  did  not  carry  anything  to  a  very  high  pitch ;  he 
was  accomplished,  industrious,  successful,  —  all  in  the 
minor  degree.  He  was  fond  of  his  mother  and  fond 
of  himself ;  he  also  liked  the  people  who  liked  him. 
Such  people  could  belong  only  to  the  class  of  good 
listeners,  for  Floriniond,  with  the  least  encourage- 
ment (he  was  very  susceptible  to  that),  would  chatter 
by  the  hour.  As  he  was  very  observant,  and  knew 
a  great  many  stories,  his  talk  was  often  entertaining, 
especially  to  women,  many  of  whom  thought  him 


312  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

wonderfully  sympathetic.  It  may  be  added  that  he 
was  still  very  young  and  fluid,  and  neither  his  defects 
nor  his  virtues  had  a  great  consistency.  He  was 
fond  of  the  society  of  women,  and  had  an  idea  that 
he  knew  a  great  deal  about  that  element  of  human- 
ity. He  believed  himself  to  know  everything  about 
art,  and  almost  everything  about  life,  and  he  ex- 
pressed himself  as  much  as  possible  in  the  phrases 
that  are  current  in  studios.  He  spoke  French  very 
well,  and  it  had  rubbed  off  on  his  English. 

His  aunt  listened  to  him  attentively,  with  her 
nippers  on  her  nose.  She  had  been  a  little  restless 
at  first,  and,  to  relieve  herself,  had  vaguely  punched 
the  sofa-cushion  which  lay  beside  her,  —  a  gesture 
that  her  friends  always  recognized ;  they  knew  it 
.  to  express  a  particular  emotion.  Florimond,  whose 
egotism  was  candid  and  confiding,  talked  for  an  hour 
about  himself,  —  about  what  he  had  done,  and  what 
he  intended  to  do,  what  he  had  said  and  what  had 
been  said  to  him ;  about  his  habits,  tastes,  achieve- 
ments, peculiarities,  which  were  apparently  so  num- 
erous ;  about  the  decorations  of  his  studio  in  Paris ; 
about  the  character  of  the  French,  the  works  of  Zola, 
the  theory  of  art  for  art,  the  American  type,  the 
"  stupidity  "  of  his  mother's  new  house,  —  though  of 
course  it  had  some  things  that  were  knowing,  —  the 
pronunciation  of  Joanna's  children,  the  effect  of  the 
commission  business  on  Arthur  Merriman's  conver- 
sation, the  effect  of  everything  on  his  mother,  Mrs. 
Daintry,  and  the  effect  of  Mrs.  Daintry  on  her  son 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  313 

Florimond.  The  young  man  had  an  epithet,  which 
he  constantly  introduced,  to  express  disapproval; 
when  he  spoke  of  the  architecture  of  his  mother's 
house,  over  which  she  khad  taken  great  pains  (she 
remembered  the  gabled  fronts  of  Nuremberg),  he 
said  that  a  certain  effect  had  been  dreadfully  missed, 
that  the  character  of  the  doorway  was  simply  "  crass." 
He  expressed,  however,  a  lively  sense  of  the  bright 
cleanness  of  American  interiors.  "  Oh,  as  for  that," 
he  said,  "the  place  is  kept,  —  it's  kept;"  and,  to 
give  an  image  of  this  idea,  he  put  his  gathered  fingers 
to  his  lips  an  instant,  seemed  to  kiss  them  or  blow 
upon  them,  and  then  opened  them  into  the  air. 
Miss  Daintry  had  never  encountered  this  gesture  be- 
fore ;  she  had  heard  it  described  by  travelled  persons ; 
but  to  see  her  own  nephew  in  the  very  act  of  it  led 
her  to  administer  another  thump  to  the  sofa-cushion. 
She  finally  got  this  article  under  control,  and  sat 
more  quiet,  with  her  hands  clasped  upon  it,  while 
her  visitor  continued  to  discourse.  In  pursuance  of 
his  character  as  an  impressionist,  he  gave  her  a  great 
many  impressions ;  but  it  seemed  to  her  that  as  he 
talked,  he  simply  exposed  himself,  — exposed  his  egot- 
ism, his  little  pretensions.  Lucretia  Daintry,  as  we 
know,  had  a  love  of  justice,  and  though  her  opinions 
were  apt  to  be  very  positive,  her  charity  was  great 
and  her  judgments  were  not  harsh ;  moreover,  there 
was  in  her  composition  not  a  drop  of  acrimony. 
Nevertheless,  she  was,  as  the  phrase  is,  rather  hard 
on  poor  little  Florimond  ;  and  to  explain  her  severity 


314  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

we  are  bound  to  assume  that  in  the  past  he  had 
in  some  way  offended  her.  To-day,  at  any  rate,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  he  patronized  his  maiden  aunt. 
He  scarcely  asked  about  her  health,  but  took  for 
granted  on  her  part  an  unlimited  interest  in  his 
own  sensations.  It  came  over  her  afresh  that  his 
mother  had  been  absurd  in  thinking  that  the  usual 
resources  of  Boston  would  not  have  sufficed  to  main- 
tain him ;  and  she  smiled  a  little  grimly  at  the  idea 
that  a  special  provision  should  have  been  made.  This 
idea  presently  melted  into  another,  over  which  she 
was  free  to  regale  herself  only  after  her  nephew  had 
departed.  For  the  moment  she  contented  herself 
with  saying  to  him,  when  a  pause  in  his  young 
eloquence  gave  her  a  chance,  —  "  You  will  have  a 
great  many  people  to  go  and  see.  You  pay  the  pen- 
alty of  being  a  Bostonian ;  you  have  several  hundred 
cousins.  One  pays  for  everything." 

Florimond  lifted  his  eyebrows.  "I  pay  for  that 
every  day  of  my  life.  Have  I  got  to  go  and  see  them 
all?" 

"  All  —  every  one,"  said  his  aunt,  who  in  reality 
did  not  hold  this  obligation  in  the  least  sacred. 

"  And  to  say  something  agreeable  to  them  all  ? " 
the  young  man  went  on. 

"  Oh,  no,  that  is  not  necessary,"  Miss  Daintry  re- 
joined, with  more  exactness.  "There  are  one  or  two, 
however,  who  always  appreciate  a  pretty  speech." 
She  added  in  an  instant,  "  Do  you  remember  Mrs. 
Mesh?" 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER  315 

"  Mrs.  Mesh  ? "  Florimond  apparently  did  not  re- 
member. 

"The  wife  of  Donald  Mesh;  your  grandfathers 
were  first  cousins.  I  don't  mean  her  grandfather, 
but  her  husband's.  If  you  don't  remember  her,  I 
suppose  he  married  her  after  you  went  away." 

"  I  remember  Donald ;  but  I  never  knew  he  was 
a  relation.  He  was  single  then,  I  think." 

"  Well,  he 's  double  now,"  said  Miss  Daintry ;  "  he 's 
triple,  I  may  say,  for  there  are  two  ladies  in  the  house." 

"  If  you  mean  he 's  a  polygamist  —  are  there  Mor- 
mons even  here  ? "  Florimond,  leaning  back  in  his 
chair,  with  his  elbow  on  the  arm,  and  twisting  with 
his  gloved  fingers  the  point  of  a  small  fair  mustache, 
did  not  appear  to  have  been  arrested  by  this  account 
of  Mr.  Mesh's  household;  for  he  almost  immedi- 
ately asked,  in  a  large,  detached  way,  —  "  Are  there 
any  nice  women  here  ? " 

"It  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  nice  women; 
there  are  some  very  sharp  ones." 

"  Oh,  I  don't  like  sharp  ones,"  Florimond  remarked, 
in  a  tone  which  made  his  aunt  long  to  throw  her 
sofa-cushion  at  his  head.  "Are  there  any  pretty 
ones  ? " 

She  looked  at  him  a  moment,  hesitating.  "Eachel 
Torrance  is  pretty,  in  a  strange,  unusual  way,  —  black 
hair  and  blue  eyes,  a  serpentine  figure,  old  coins  in 
her  tresses  ;  that  sort  of  thing." 

"I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  that  sort  of  thing," 
said  Florimond,  a  little  confusedly. 


316  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

"  That  I  know  nothing  about.  I  mention  Pauline 
Mesh's  as  one  of  the  houses  that  you  ought  to  go 
to,  and  where  I  know  you  are  expected." 

"  I  remember  now  that  my  mother  has  said  some- 
thing about  that.  But  who  is  the  woman  with  coins 
in  her  hair?  —  what  has  she  to  do  with  Pauline 
Mesh?" 

"  Eachel  is  staying  with  her ;  she  came  from  New 
York  a  week  ago,  and  I  believe  she  means  to  spend 
the  winter.  She  isn't  a  woman,  she's  a  girl." 

"  My  mother  did  n't  speak  of  her,"  said  Florimond ; 
"  but  I  don't  think  she  would  recommend  me  a  girl 
with  a  serpentine  figure." 

"  Very  likely  not,"  Miss  Daintry  answered,  dryly. 
"Eachel  Torrance  is  a  far-away  cousin  of  Donald 
Mesh,  and  consequently  of  mine  and  of  yours.  She  's 
an  artist,  like  yourself;  she  paints  flowers  on  little 
panels  and  plaques" 

"  like  myself  ?  —  I  never  painted  a  plaque  in  my 
life!"  exclaimed  Florimond,  staring. 

"Well,  she's  a  model  also;  you  can  paint  her  if 
you  like  ;  she  has  often  been  painted,  I  believe." 

Florimond  had  begun  to  caress  the  other  tip  of 
his  mustache.  "  I  don't  care  for  women^who  have 
been  painted  before.  I  like  to  find  them  out.  Be- 
sides, I  want  to  rest  this  winter." 

His  aunt  was  disappointed;  she  wished  to  put 
him  into  relation  with  Eachel  Torrance,  and  his  in- 
difference was  an  obstacle.  The  meeting  was  sure 
to  take  place  sooner  or  later,  but  she  would  have  him 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  317 

glad  to  precipitate  it,  and,  above  all,  to  quicken  her 
nephew's  susceptibilities.  "  Take  care  you  are  not 
found  out  yourself!"  she  exclaimed,  tossing  away 
her  sofa-cushion  and  getting  up. 

Florimond  did  not  see  what  she  meant,  and  he 
accordingly  bore  her  no  rancor ;  but  when,  before  he 
took  his  leave,  he  said  to  her,  rather  irrelevantly, 
that  if  he  should  find  himself  in  the  mood  during  his 
stay  in  Boston,  he  should  like  to  do  her  portrait,  — 
she  had  such  a  delightful  face,  —  she  almost  thought 
the  speech  a  deliberate  impertinence.  "Do  you 
mean  that  you  have  discovered  me,  —  that  no  one 
has  suspected  it  before  ?  "  she  inquired  with  a  laugh, 
and  a  little  flush  in  the  countenance  that  he  was  so 
good  as  to  appreciate. 

Florimond  replied,  with  perfect  coolness  and  good- 
nature, that  he  did  n't  know  about  this,  but  that  he 
was  sure  no  one  had  seen  her  in  just  the  way  he  saw 
her ;  and  he  waved  his  hand  in  the  air  with  strange 
circular  motions,  as  if  to  evoke  before  him  the  image 
of  a  canvas,  with  a  figure  just  rubbed  in.  He  re- 
peated this  gesture,  or  something  very  like  it,  by  way 
of  farewell,  when  he  quitted  his  aunt,  and  she 
thought  him  insufferably  patronizing. 

This  is  why  .she  wished  him,  without  loss  of  time, 
to  make  the  acquaintance  of  Rachel  Torrance,  whose 
treatment  of  his  pretensions  she  thought  would  be 
salutary.  It  may  now  be  communicated  to  the 
reader  —  after  a  delay  proportionate  to  the  momen- 
tousness  of  the  fact  —  that  this  had  been  the  idea 


318  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

which  suddenly  flowered  in  her  brain  as  she  sat  face 
to  face  with  her  irritating  young  visitor.  It  had 
vaguely  shaped  itself  after  her  meeting  with  that 
strange  girl  from  Brooklyn,  whom  Mrs.  Mesh,  all 
gratitude,  —  for  she  liked  strangeness,  —  promptly 
brought  to  see  her ;  and  her  present  impression  of  her 
nephew  rapidly  completed  it.  She  had  not  expected 
to  take  an  interest  in  Eachel  Torrance,  and  could  not 
see  why,  through  a  freak  of  Susan's,  she  should  have 
been  called  upon  to  think  so  much  about  her ;  but, 
to  her  surprise,  she  perceived  that  Mrs.  Daintry's 
proposed  victim  was  not  the  usual  forward  girl.  She 
perceived  at  the  same  time  that  it  had  been  ridicu- 
lous to  think  of  Eachel  as  a  victim,  —  to  suppose  that 
she  was  in  danger  of  vainly  fixing  her  affections  upon 
Florimond.  She  was  much  more  likely  to  triumph 
than  to  suffer ;  and  if  her  visit  to  Boston  were  to  pro- 
duce bitter  fruits,  it  would  not  be  she  who  should 
taste  them.  She  had  a  striking,  oriental  head,  a 
beautiful  smile,  a  manner  of  dressing  which  carried 
out  her  exotic  type,  and  a  great  deal  of  experience 
and  wit.  She  evidently  knew  the  world,  as  one 
knows  it  when  one  has  to  live  by  its  help.  If  she 
had  an  aim  in  life,  she  would  draw  her  bow  well 
above  the  tender  breast  of  Florimond  Daintry.  With 
all  this,  she  certainly  was  an  honest,  obliging  girl, 
and  had  a  sense  of  humor  which  was  a  fortunate 
obstacle  to  her  falling  into  a  pose.  Her  coins  and 
amulets  and  seamless  garments  were,  for  her,  a  part 
of  the  general  joke  of  one's  looking  like  a  Circassian 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  319 

or  a  Smyrniote,  —  an  accideut  for  which  Nature  was 
responsible ;  and  it  may  be  said  of  her  that  she  took 
herself  much  less  seriously  than  other  people  took 
her.  This  was  a  defect  for  which  Lucretia  Daintry 
had  a  great  kindness ;  especially  as  she  quickly  saw 
that  Eachel  was  not  of  an  insipid  paste,  as  even 
triumphant  coquettes  sometimes  are.  In  spite  of  her 
poverty  and  the  opportunities  her  beauty  must  have 
brought  her,  she  had  not  yet  seen  fit  to  marry, — which 
was  a  proof  that  she  was  clever  as  well  as  disinter- 
ested. It  looks  dreadfully  cold-blooded  as  I  write  it 
here,  but  the  notion  that  this  capable  creature  might 
administer  poetic  justice  to  Florimond  gave  a  meas- 
urable satisfaction  to  Miss  Daintry.  He  was  in 
distinct  need  of  a  snub,  for  down  in  Newbury  Street 
his  mother  was  perpetually  swinging  the  censer ;  and 
no  young  nature  could  stand  that  sort  of  thing,  —  least 
of  all  such  a  nature  as  Florimond's.  She  said  to 
herself  that  such  a  "  putting  in  his  place "  as  he 
might  receive  from  Eachel  Torrance  would  probably 
be  a  permanent  correction.  She  wished  his  good,  as 
she  wished  the  good  of  every  one;  and  that  desire 
was  at  the  bottom  of  her  vision.  She  knew  perfectly 
what  she  should  like :  she  should  like  him  to  fall  in 
love  with  Rachel,  as  he  probably  would,  and  to  have 
no  doubt  of  her  feeling  immensely  honored.  She 
should  like  Rachel  to  encourage  him  just  enough  — 
just  so  far  as  she  might,  without  being  false.  A  little 
would  do,  for  Florimond  would  always  take  his  suc- 
cess for  granted.  To  this  point  did  the  study  of  her 


320  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

nephew's  moral  regeneration  bring  the  excellent 
woman,  who  a  few  days  before  had  accused  his 
mother  of  a  lack  of  morality.  His  mother  was  think- 
ing only  of  his  pleasure ;  she  was  thinking  of  his 
immortal  spirit.  She  should  like  Eachel  to  tell  him 
at  the  end  that  he  was  a  presumptuous  little  boy, 
and  that  since  it  was  his  business  to  render  "  impres- 
sions," he  might  see  what  he  could  do  with  that  of 
having  been  jilted.  This  extraordinary  flight  of  fancy 
on  Miss  Daintry's  part  was  caused  in  some  degree  by 
the  high  spirits  which  sprang  from  her  conviction, 
after  she  met  the  young  lady,  that  Mrs.  Mesh's  com- 
panion was  not  in  danger ;  for  even  when  she  wrote 
to  her  sister-in-law  in  the  manner  the  reader  knows, 
her  conscience  was  not  wholly  at  rest.  There  was 
still  a  risk,  and  she  knew  not  why  she  should  take 
risks  for  Florimond.  Now,  however,  she  was  pre- 
pared to  be  perfectly  happy  when  she  should  hear 
that  the  young  man  was  constantly  in  Arlington 
Street ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  little  month  she  enjoyed 
this  felicity. 

VI. 

MRS.  MESH  sat  on  one  side  of  the  fire,  and  Flori- 
mond on  the  other;  he  had  by  this  time  acquired 
the  privilege  of  a  customary  seat.  He  had  taken  a 
general  view  of  Boston.  It  was  like  a  first  introduc- 
tion, for  before  his  going  to  live  in  Paris  he  had  been 
too  young  to  judge  ;  and  the  result  of  this  survey  was 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  321 

the  conviction  that  there  was  nothing  better  than 
Mrs.  Mesh's  drawing-room.  She  was  one  of  the  few 
persons  whom  one  was  certain  to  find  at  home  after 
five  o'clock ;  and  the  place  itself  was  agreeable  to 
Florimond,  who  was  very  fastidious  about  furniture 
and  decorations.  He  was  willing  to  concede  that 
Mrs.  Mesh  (the  relationship  had  not  yet  seemed 
close  enough  to  justify  him  in  calling  her  Pauline) 
knew  a  great  deal  about  such  matters ;  though  it 
was  clear  that  she  was  indebted  for  some  of  her 
illumination  to  Rachel  Torrance,  who  had  induced  her 
to  make  several  changes.  These  two  ladies,  between 
them,  represented  a  great  fund  of  taste ;  with  a 
difference  that  was  a  result  of  Rachel's  knowing 
clearly  beforehand  what  she  liked  (Florimond  called 
her,  at  least,  by  her  baptismal  name),  and  Mrs. 
Mesh's  only  knowing  it  after  a  succession  of  experi- 
ments, of  transposings  and  drapings,  all  more  or  less 
ingenious  and  expensive.  If  Florimond  liked  Mrs. 
Mesh's  drawing-room  better  than  any  other  corner 
of  Boston,  he  also  had  his  preference  in  regard  to 
its  phases  and  hours.  It  was  most  charming  in  the 
winter  twilight,  by  the  glow  of  the  fire,  before  the 
lamps  had  been  brought  in.  The  ruddy  flicker 
played  over  many  objects,  making  them  look  more 
mysterious  than  Florimond  had  supposed  anything 
could  look  in  Boston,  and,  among  others,  upon 
Rachel  Torrance,  who,  when  she  moved  about  the 
room  in  a  desultory  way  (never  so  much  enfoncte,  as 
Florimond  said,  in  a  chair  as  Mrs.  Mesh  was)  cer- 

21 


322  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

tainly  attracted  and  detained  the  eye.  The  young 
man,  from  his  corner  (he  was  almost  as  much 
enfonct  as  Mrs.  Mesh),  used  to  watch  her ;  and  he 
could  easily  see  what  his  aunt  had  meant  by  saying 
she  had  a  serpentine  figure.  She  was  slim  and 
flexible,  she  took  attitudes  which  would  have  been 
awkward  in  other  women,  but  which  her  charming 
pliancy  made  natural.  She  reminded  him  of  a  cele- 
brated actress  in  Paris,  who  was  the  ideal  of  tortuous 
thinness.  Miss  Torrance  used  often  to  seat  herself 
for  a  short  time  at  the  piano  ;  and  though  she  never 
had  been  taught  this  art  (she  played  only  by  ear), 
her  musical  feeling  was  such  that  she  charmed  the 
twilight  hour.  Mrs.  Mesh  sat  on  one  side  of  the  fire, 
as  I  have  said,  and  Florimoud  on  the  other ;  the  two 
might  have  been  found  in  this  relation,  —  listening, 
face  to  face,  —  almost  any  day  in  the  week.  Mrs. 
Mesh  raved  about  her  new  friend,  as  they  said  in 
Boston,  —  I  mean  about  Eachel  Torrance,  not  about 
Florimond  Daintry.  She  had  at  last  got  hold  of  a 
mind  that  understood  her  own  (Mrs.  Mesh's  mind 
contained  depths  of  mystery),  and  she  sacrificed  her- 
self, generally,  to  throw  her  companion  into  relief. 
Her  sacrifice  was  rewarded,  for  the  girl  was  uni- 
versally liked  and  admired ;  she  was  a  new  type 
altogether ;  she  was  the  lioness  of  the  winter.  Flori- 
mond had  an  opportunity  to  see  his  native  town  in 
one  of  its  fits  of  enthusiasm.  He  had  heard  of  the 
infatuations  of  Boston,  literary  and  social;  of  its 
capacity  for  giving  itself  with  intensity  to  a  tempo- 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  323 

rary  topic;  and  he  was  now  conscious,  on  all  sides, 
of  the  breath  of  New  England  discussion.     Some  one 
had   said   to   him,  —  or  had  said  to  some  one,  who 
repeated  it,  —  that  there   was  no  place  like  Boston 
for  taking  up  with  such  seriousness   a   second-rate 
spinster    from    Brooklyn.     But    Florimond    himself 
made  no  criticism ;  for,  as  we  know,  he  speedily  fell 
under  the  charm  of  Kachel   Torrance's   personality. 
He  was  perpetually  talking  with  Mrs.  Mesh  about 
it;  and  when  Mrs.    Mesh  herself  descanted  on  the 
subject,  he  listened  with  the  utmost  attention.     At 
first,  on  his   return,   he  rather  feared  the   want   of 
topics;   he  foresaw  that  he  should  miss  the  talk  of 
the  studios,  of  the  theatres,  of  the  boulevard,  of  a 
little  circle  of  "  naturalists  "  (in  literature  and  art)  to 
which  he  belonged,  without   sharing  all   its   views. 
But  he  presently  perceived  that  Boston,  too,  had  its 
actualities,  and  that  it  even  had  this  in  common  with 
Paris,  —  that  it  gave  its  attention  most  willingly  to  a 
female  celebrity.     If  he  had  had  any  hope  of  being 
himself  the  lion  of  the  winter,  it  had  been  dissipated 
by   the   spectacle    of  his  cousin's  success.     He  saw 
that  while  she  was  there,  he  could  only  be  a  subject 
of  secondary  reference.     He  bore  her  no  grudge  for 
this.     I  must  hasten  to  declare  that  from  the  petti- 
ness of  this  particular  jealousy  poor  Florimond  was 
quite  exempt.     Moreover,  he  was  swept  along  by  the 
general   chorus ;  and   he   perceived  that   when   one 
changes  one's  sky,  one  inevitably  changes,  more  or 
less,  one's  standard.     Rachel  Torrance  was  neither 


324  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

an  actress,  nor  a  singer,  nor  a  beauty,  nor  one  of  the 
ladies  who  were  chronicled  in  the  "  Figaro,"  nor  the 
author  of  a  successful  book,  nor  a  person  of  the  great 
world ;  she  had  neither  a  future,  nor  a  past,  nor  a 
position,  nor  even  a  husband,  to  make  her  identity 
more  solid  ;  she  was  a  simple  American  girl,  of  the 
class  that  lived  in  pensions  (a  class  of  which  Flori- 
inond  had  ever  entertained  a  theoretic  horror)  ;  and 
yet  she  had  profited  to  the  degree  of  which  our 
young  man  was  witness,  by  those  treasures  of  sym- 
pathy constantly  in  reserve  in  the  American  public 
(as  has  already  been  intimated)  for  the  youthful- 
feminine.  If  Florimond  was  struck  with  all  this,  it 
may  be  imagined  whether  or  no  his  mother  thought 
she  had  been  clever  when  it  occurred  to  her  (before 
any  one  else)  that  Eachel  would  be  a  resource  for  the 
term  of  hibernation.  She  had  forgotten  all  her  scru- 
ples and  hesitations ;  she  only  knew  she  had  seen 
very  far.  She  was  proud  of  her  prescience,  she  was 
even  amused  with  it ;  and  for  the  moment  she  held  her 
head  rather  high.  No  one  knew  of  it  but  Lucretia, 
—  for  she  had  never  confided  it  to  Joanna,  of  whom 
she  would  have  been  more  afraid  in  such  a  connec- 
tion even  than  of  her  sister-in-law ;  but  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Merriman  perceived  an  unusual  lightness  in  her 
step,  a  fitful  sparkle  in  her  eye.  It  was  of  course 
easy  for  them  to  make  up  their  mind  that  she  was 
exhilarated  to  this  degree  by  the  presence  of  her  son  ; 
especially  as  he  seemed  to  be  getting  on  beautifully 
in  Boston. 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  325 

"  She  stays  out  longer  every  day ;  she  is  scarcely 
ever  home  to  tea,"  Mrs.  Mesh  remarked,  looking  up 
at  the  clock  on  the  chimney-piece. 

Florimond  could  not  fail  to  know  to  whom  she 
alluded,  for  it  has  been  intimated  that  between  these 
two  there  was  much  conversation  about  Eachel  Tor- 
ranee.  "It's  funny,  the  way  the  girls  run  about 
alone  here,"  he  said,  in  the  amused,  contemplative 
tone  in  which  he  frequently  expressed  himself  on  the 
subject  of  American  life.  "Eachel  stays  out  after 
dark,  and  no  one  thinks  any  the  worse  of  her." 

"  Oh,  well,  she 's  old  enough,"  Mrs.  Mesh  rejoined, 
with  a  little  sigh,  which  seemed  to  suggest  that 
Eachel's  age  was  really  affecting.  Her  eyes  had 
been  opened  by  Morimond  to  many  of  the  peculiari- 
ties of  the  society  that  surrounded  her ;  and  though 
she  had  spent  only  as  many  months  in  Europe  as 
her  visitor  had  spent  years,  she  now  sometimes  spoke 
as  if  she  thought  the  manners  of  Boston  more  odd 
even  than  he  could  pretend  to  do.  She  was  very 
quick  at  picking  up  an  idea,  and  there  was  nothing 
she  desired  more  than  to  have  the  last  on  every 
subject.  This  winter,  from  her  two  new  friends, 
Florimond  and  Eachel,  she  had  extracted  a  great 
many  that  were  new  to  her;  the  only  trouble  was 
that,  coming  from  different  sources,  they  sometimes 
contradicted  each  other.  Many  of  them,  however, 
were  very  vivifying ;  they  added  a  new  zest  to  that 
prospect  of  life  which  had  always,  in  winter,  the  de- 
nuded bushes,  the  solid  pond,  and  the  plank-covered 


326  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

walks,  the  exaggerated  bridge,  the  patriotic  statues, 
the  dry,  hard  texture  of  the  Public  Garden  for  its 
foreground,  and  for  its  middle  distance,  the  pale, 
frozen  twigs,  stiff  in  the  windy  sky,  that  whistled 
over  the  Common,  the  domestic  dome  of  the  State 
House,  familiar  in  the  untinted  air,  and  the  competi- 
tive spires  of  a  liberal  faith.  Mrs.  Mesh  had  an  active 
imagination,  and  plenty  of  time  on  her  hands.  Her 
two  children  were  young,  and  they  slept  a  good  deal ; 
she  had  explained  to  Florimond,  who  observed  that 
she  was  a  great  deal  less  in  the  nursery  than  his 
sister,  that  she  pretended  only  to  give  her  attention 
to  their  waking  hours.  "  I  have  people  for  the  rest 
of  the  time,"  she  said ;  and  the  rest  of  the  time  was 
considerable;  so  that  there  were  very  few  obstacles 
to  her  cultivation  of  ideas.  There  was  one  in  her 
mind  now,  and  I  may  as  well  impart  it  to  the  reader 
without  delay.  She  was  not  quite  so  delighted  with 
Eachel  Torrance  as  she  had  been  a  month  ago  ;  it 
seemed  to  her  that  the  young  lady  took  up  —  socially 
speaking  —  too  much  room  in  the  house;  and  she 
wondered  how  long  she  intended  to  remain,  and 
whether  it  would  be  possible,  without  a  direct  re- 
quest, to  induce  her  to  take  her  way  back  to  Brooklyn. 
This  last  was  the  conception  with  which  she  was  at 
present  engaged ;  she  was  at  moments  much  pressed 
by  it,  and  she  had  thoughts  of  taking  Florimond 
Daintry  into  her  confidence.  This,  however,  she 
determined  not  to  do,  lest  he  should  regard  it  as  a 
sign  that  she  was  jealous  of  her  companion.  I  know 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  327 

not  whether  she  was,  but  this  I  know,  —  that  Mrs. 
Mesh  was  a  woman  of  a  high  ideal,  and  would  not 
for  the  world  have  appeared  so.  If  she  was  jealous, 
this  would  imply  that  she  thought  Florimond  was  in 
love  with  Eachel ;  and  she  could  only  object  to  that 
on  the  ground  of  being  in  love  with  him  herself. 
She  was  not  in  love  with  him,  and  had  no  intention 
of  being ;  of  this  the  reader,  possibly  alarmed,  may 
definitely  rest  assured.  Moreover,  she  did  not  think 
him  in  love  with  Rachel ;  as  to  her  reason  for  this 
reserve,  I  need  not,  perhaps,  be  absolutely  outspoken. 
She  was  not  jealous,  she  would  have  said ;  she  was 
only  oppressed  —  she  was  a  little  over-ridden.  Rachel 
pervaded  her  house,  pervaded  her  life,  pervaded  Bos- 
ton ;  every  one  thought  it  necessary  to  talk  to  her 
about  Rachel,  to  rave  about  her  in  the  Boston  man- 
ner, which  seemed  to  Mrs.  Mesh,  in  spite  of  the 
Puritan  tradition,  very  much  more  unbridled  than 
that  of  Baltimore.  They  thought  it  would  give  her 
pleasure;  but  by  this  time  she  knew  everything 
about  Rachel.  The  girl  had  proved  rather  more  of  a 
figure  than  she  expected ;  and  though  she  could  not 
be  called  pretentious,  she  had  the  air,  in  staying  with 
Pauline  Mesh,  of  conferring  rather  more  of  a  favor 
than  she  received.  This  was  absurd  for  a  person 
who  was,  after  all,  though  not  in  her  first  youth,  only 
a  girl,  and  who,  as  Mrs.  Mesh  was  sure,  from  her 
biography,  —  for  Rachel  had  related  every  item,  — 
had  never  before  had  such  unrestricted  access  to  the 
fleshpots.  The  fleshpots  were  full,  under  Donald 


328  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

Mesh's  roof,  and  his  wife  could  easily  believe  that 
the  poor  girl  would  not  be  in  a  hurry  to  return  to 
her  boarding-house  in  Brooklyn.  For  that  matter 
there  were  lots  of  people  in  Boston  who  would  be 
delighted  that  she  should  come  to  them.  It  was 
doubtless  an  inconsistency  on  Mrs.  Mesh's  part  that 
if  she  was  overdone  with  the  praises  of  Kachel 
Torrance  which  fell  from  every  lip,  she  should  not 
herself  have  forborne  to  broach  the  topic.  But  I 
have  sufficiently  intimated  that  it  had  a  perverse 
fascination  for  her ;  it  is  true  she  did  not  speak  of 
Eachel  only  to  praise  her.  Florimond,  in  truth,  was 
a  little  weary  of  the  young  lady's  name;  he  had 
plenty  of  topics  of  his  own,  and  he  had  his  own 
opinion  about  Eachel  Torrance.  He  did  not  take 
up  Mrs.  Mesh's  remark  as  to  her  being  old  enough. 
"You  must  wait  till  she  comes  in.  Please  ring 

o 

for  tea,"  said  Mrs.  Mesh,  after  a  pause.  She  had 
noticed  that  Florimond  was  comparing  his  watch 
with  her  clock ;  it  occurred  to  her  that  he  might  be 
going. 

"  Oh,  I  always  wait,  you  know ;  I  like  to  see  her 
when  she  has  been  anywhere.  She  tells  one  all 
about  it,  and  describes  everything  so  well." 

Mrs.  Mesh  looked  at  him  a  moment.  "  She  sees 
a  great  deal  more  in  things  than  I  am  usually  able 
to  discover.  She  sees  the  most  extraordinary  things 
in  Boston." 

"  Well,  so  do  I,"  said  Florimond,  placidly. 

"Well,  I  don't,  I  must  say!"     She  asked  him  to 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  329 

ring  again ;  and  then,  with  a  slight  irritation,  accused 
him  of  not  ringing  hard  enough ;  but  before  he  could 
repeat  the  operation,  she  left  her  chair  and  went  her- 
self to  the  bell.  After  this  she  stood  before  the  fire 
a  moment,  gazing  into  it ;  then  suggested  to  Flori- 
mond  that  he  should  put  on  a  log. 

"  Is  it  necessary,  — when  your  servant  is  coming 
in  a  moment  ?  "  the  young  man  asked,  unexpectedly, 
without  moving.  In  an  instant,  however,  he  rose  ; 
and  then  he  explained  that  this  was  only  his  little 
joke. 

"  Servants  are  too  stupid,"  said  Mrs.  Mesh.  "  But 
I  spoil  you.  What  would  your  mother  say  ?  "  She 
watched  him  while  he  placed  the  log.  She  was 
plump,  and  she  was  not  tall ;  but  she  was  a  very 
pretty  woman.  She  had  round  brown  eyes,  which 
looked  as  if  she  had  been  crying  a  little,  —  she  had 
nothing  in  life  to  cry  about ;  and  dark,  wavy  hair, 
which,  here  and  there,  in  short,  crisp  tendrils,  escaped 
artfully  from  the  form  in  which  it  was  dressed. 
When  she  smiled,  she  showed  very  pretty  teeth;  and 
the  combination  of  her  touching  eyes  and  her  parted 
lips  was  at  such  moments  almost  bewitching.  She 
was  accustomed  to  express  herself  in  humorous 
superlatives,  in  pictorial  circumlocutions;  and  had 
acquired  in  Boston  the  rudiments  of  a  social  dialect 
which,  to  be  heard  in  perfection,  should  be  heard 
on  the  lips  of  a  native.  Mrs.  Mesh  had  picked  it 
up ;  but  it  must  be  confessed  that  she  used  it  with- 
out originality.  It  was  an  accident  that  on  this 


330  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

• 

occasion  she  had  not  expressed  her  wish  for  her  tea 
by  saying  that  she  should  like  a  pint  or  two  of  that 
Chinese  fluid. 

"  My  mother  believes  I  can't  be  spoiled,"  said 
Florimond,  giving  a  little  push  with  his  toe  to  the 
stick  that  he  had  placed  in  the  embers  ;  after  which 
he  sank  back  into  his  chair,  while  Mrs.  Mesh  re- 
sumed possession  of  her  own.  "  I  am  ever  fresh,  — 
ever  pure." 

"You  are  ever  conceited.  I  don't  see  what  you 
find  so  extraordinary  in  Boston,"  Mrs.  Mesh  added, 
reverting  to  his  remark  of  a  moment  before. 

"  Oh,  everything !  the  ways  of  the  people,  their 
ideas,  their  peculiar  cachet.  The  very  expression  of 
their  faces  amuses  me." 

"  Most  of  them  have  no  expression  at  all." 

"  Oh,  you  are  used  to  it,"  Florimond  said.  "  You 
have  become  one  of  themselves ;  you  have  ceased 
to  notice." 

"  I  am  more  of  a  stranger  than  you ;  I  was  born 
beneath  other  skies.  Is  it  possible  that  you  don't 
know  yet  that  I  am  a  native  of  Baltimore  ?  '  Mary- 
land, my  Maryland ! ' ' 

"  Have  they  got  so  much  expression  in  Maryland  ? 
No,  I  thank  you ;  no  tea.  Is  it  possible ! "  Flori- 
mond went  on,  with  the  familiarity  of  pretended 
irritation,  —  "  is  it  possible  that  you  have  n't  noticed 
yet  that  I  never  take  it  ?  Boisson  fade,  ecceurante,  as 
Balzac  calls  it." 

"Ah,  well,  if  you  don't  take  it  on  account   of 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  331 

Balzac  ! "  said  Mrs.  Mesh.  "  I  never  saw  a  man  who 
had  such  fantastic  reasons.  Where,  by  the  way,  is 
the  volume  of  that  depraved  old  author  which  you 
promised  to  bring  me  ? " 

"  When  do  you  think  he  flourished  ?  You  call 
everything  old,  in  this  country,  that  is  n't  in  the 
morning  paper.  I  have  n't  brought  you  the  volume, 
because  I  don't  want  to  bring  you  presents,"  Flori- 
mond  said ;  "  I  want  you  to  love  me  for  myself,  as 
they  say  in  Paris." 

"  Don't  quote  what  they  say  in  Paris !  Don't 
sully  this  innocent  bower  with  those  fearful  words  ! " 
Mrs.  Mesh  rejoined,  with  a  jocose  intention.  "  Dear 
lady,  your  son  is  not  everything  we  could  wish  ! " 
she  added  in  the  same  mock  dramatic  tone,  as  the 
curtain  of  the  door  was  lifted,  and  Mrs.  Daintry 
rather  timidly  advanced.  Mrs.  Daintry  had  come 
to  satisfy  a  curiosity,  after  all  quite  legitimate ;  she 
could  no  longer  resist  the  impulse  to  ascertain  for 
herself,  so  far  as  she  might,  how  Eachel  Torrance 
and  Florimond  were  getting  on.  She  had  had  no  defi- 
nite expectation  of  finding  Florimond  at  Mrs.  Mesh's ; 
but  she  supposed  that  at  this  hour  of  the  afternoon, — 
it  was  already  dark,  and  the  ice,  in  many  parts  of 
Beacon  Street,  had  a  polish  which  gleamed  through 
the  dusk,  —  she  should  find  Eachel.  "  Your  son  has 
lived  too  long  in  far-off  lands ;  he  has  dwelt  among 
outworn  things,"  Mrs.  Mesh  went  on,  as  she  con- 
ducted her  visitor  to  a  chair.  "  Dear  lady,  you  are 
not  as  Balzac  was ;  do  you  start  at  the  mention  of 


332  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

his  name  ?  —  therefore  you  will  have  some  tea  in  a 
little  painted  cup." 

Mrs.  Daintry  was  not  bewildered,  though  it  may 
occur  to  the  reader  that  she  might  have  been ;  she 
was  only  a  little  disappointed.  She  had  hoped  she 
might  have  occasion  to  talk  about  Florimond;  but 
the  young  man's  presence  was  a  denial  of  this  privi- 
lege. "  I  am  afraid  Kachel  is  not  at  home,"  she 
remarked.  "  I  am  afraid  she  will  think  I  have  not 
been  very  attentive." 

"  She  will  be  in  in  a  moment ;  we  are  waiting  for 
her,"  Florimond  said.  "It's  impossible  she  should 
think  any  harm  of  you.  I  have  told  her  too  much 
good." 

"  Ah,  Mrs.  Daintry,  don't  build  too  much  on  what 
he  has  told  her  !  He  's  a  false  and  faithless  man !" 
Pauline  Mesh  interposed ;  while  the  good  lady  from 
Newbury  Street,  smiling  at  this  adjuration,  but  look- 
ing a  little  grave,  turned  from  one  of  her  companions 
to  the  other.  Florimond  had  relapsed  into  his  chair 
by  the  fireplace;  he  sat  contemplating  the  embers, 
and  fingering  the  tip  of  his  mustache.  Mrs.  Daintry 
imbibed  her  tea,  and  told  how  often  she  had  slipped 
coming  down  the  hill.  These  expedients  helped  her 
to  wear  a  quiet  face ;  but  in  reality  she  was  nervous, 
and  she  felt  rather  foolish.  It  came  over  her  that 
she  was  rather  dishonest ;  she  had  presented  herself 
at  Mrs.  Mesh's  in  the  capacity  of  a  spy.  The  reader 
already  knows  she  was  subject  to  sudden  revul- 
sions of  feeling.  There  is  an  adage  about  repenting  at 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  333 

leisure ;  but  Mrs  Daintry  always  repented  in  a  hurry. 
There  was  something  in  the  air  —  something  impal- 
pable, magnetic  —  that  told  her  she  had  better  not 
have  come ;  and  even  while  she  conversed  with  Mrs. 
Mesh  she  wondered  what  this  mystic  element  could 
be.  Of  course  she  had  been  greatly  preoccupied, 
these  last  weeks ;  for  it  had  seemed  to  her  that  her 
plan  with  regard  to  Eachel  Torrance  was  succeeding 
only  too  well.  Florimond  had  frankly  accepted  her 
in  the  spirit  in  which  she  had  been  offered,  and  it 
was  very  plain  that  she  was  helping  him  to  pass  his 
winter.  He  was  constantly  at  the  house,  —  Mrs.  Dain- 
try could  not  tell  exactly  how  often;  but  she  knew 
very  well  that  in  Boston,  if  one  saw  anything  of  a 
person,  one  saw  a  good  deal  At  first  he  used  to 
speak  of  it ;  for  two  or  three  weeks,  he  had  talked  a 
good  deal  about  Rachel  Torrance.  More  lately,  his 
allusions  had  become  few;  yet  to  the  best  of  Mrs. 
Daintry's  belief  his  step  was  often  in  Arlington 
Street.  This  aroused  her  suspicions,  and  at  times  it 
troubled  her  conscience ;  there  were  moments  when 
she  wondered  whether,  in  arranging  a  genial  winter 
for  Florimond,  she  had  also  prepared  a  season  of  tor- 
ment for  herself.  Was  he  in  love  with  the  girl,  or 
had  he  already  discovered  that  the  girl  was  in  love 
with  him?  The  delicacy  of  either  situation  would 
account  for  his  silence.  Mrs.  Daintry  said  to  herself 
that  it  would  be  a  grim  joke  if  she  should  prove  to 
have  plotted  only  too  well.  It  was  her  sister-in-law's 
warning  in  especial  that  haunted  her  imagination, 


334  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

and  she  scarcely  knew,  at  times,  whether  more  to 
hope  that  Florimond  might  have  been  smitten,  or  to 
pray  that  Eachel  might  remain  indifferent.  It  was 
impossible  for  Mrs.  Daintry  to  shake  off  the  sense  of 
responsibility;  she  could  not  shut  her  eyes  to  the 
fact  that  she  had  been  the  prime  mover.  It  was  all 
very  well  to  say  that  the  situation,  as  it  stood,  was  of 
Lucretia's  making ;  the  thing  never  would  have  come 
into  Luc'retia's  head  if  she  had  not  laid  it  before  her. 
Unfortunately,  with  the  quiet  life  she  led,  she  had 
very  little  chance  to  observe ;  she  went  out  so  little, 
that  she  was  reduced  to  guessing  what  the  manner  of 
the  two  young  persons  might  be  to  each  other  when 
they  met  in  society,  and  she  should  have  thought 
herself  wanting  in  delicacy  if  she  had  sought  to  be 
intimate  with  Eachel  Torrance.  Now  that  her  plan 
was  in  operation,  she  could  make  no  attempt  to  foster 
it,  to  acknowledge  it  in  the  face  of  Heaven.  Fortu- 
nately, Rachel  had  so  many  attentions,  that  there  was 
no  fear  of  her  missing  those  of  Newbury  Street.  She 
had  dined  there  once,  in  the  first  days  of  her  sojourn, 
without  Pauline  and  Donald,  who  had  declined,  and 
with  Joanna  and  Joanna's  husband  for  all  "  com- 
pany." Mrs.  Daintry  had  noticed  nothing  particular 
then,  save  that  Arthur  Merriman  talked  rather  more 
than  usual,  —  though  he  was  always  a  free  talker,  — 
and  had  bantered  Rachel  rather  more  familiarly  than 
was  perhaps  necessary  (considering  that  he,  after  all, 
was  not  her  cousin)  on  her  ignorance  of  Boston,  and 
her  thinking  that  Pauline  Mesh  could  tell  her  any- 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  235 

thing  about  it.  On  this  occasion  Florimond  talked 
very  little ;  of  course  he  could  not  say  much  when 
Arthur  was  in  such  extraordinary  spirits.  She  knew 
by  this  time  all  that  Florimond  thought  of  his 
brother-in-law,  and  she  herself  had  to  confess  that 
she  liked  Arthur  better  in  his  jaded  hours,  even 
though  then  he  was  a  little  cynical.  Mrs.  Daintry 
had  been  perhaps  a  little  disappointed  in  Kachel, 
whom  she  saw  for  the  first  time  in  several  years. 
The  girl  was  less  peculiar  than  she  remembered  her 
being,  savored  less  of  the  old  studio,  the  musical 
parties,  the  creditors  waiting  at  the  door.  However, 
people  in  Boston  found  her  unusual,  and  Mrs.  Dain- 
try reflected,  with  a  twinge  at  her  depravity,  that 
perhaps  she  had  expected  something  too  dishevelled. 
At  any  rate,  several  weeks  had  elapsed  since  then, 
and  there  had  been  plenty  of  time  for  Miss  Torrance 
to  attach  herself  to  Floriinond.  It  was  less  than 
ever  Mrs.  Daintry's  wish  that  he  should  (even  in  this 
case)  ask  her  to  be  his  wife.  It  seemed  to  her  less 
than  ever  the  way  her  son  should  marry,  — because 
he  had  got  entangled  with  a  girl  in  consequence  of 
his  mother's  rashness.  It  occurred  to  her,  of  course, 
that  she  might  warn  the  young  man ;  but  when  it 
came  to  the  point  she  could  not  bring  herself  to 
speak.  She  had  never  discussed  the  question  of  love 
with  him,  and  she  did  n't  know  what  ideas  he  might 
have  brought  with  him  from  Paris.  It  was  too  delicate ; 
it  might  put  notions  into  his  head.  He  might  say 
something  strange  and  French,  which  she  should  n't 


336  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

like ;  and  then  perhaps  she  should  feel  bound  to  warn 
Rachel  herself,  —  a  complication  from  which  she  ab- 
solutely shrank.  It  was  part  of  her  embarrassment 
now,  as  she  sat  in  Mrs.  Mesh's  drawing-room,  that  she 
should  probably  spoil  Florimond's  entertainment  for 
this  afternoon,  and  that  such  a  crossing  of  his  inclina- 
tion would  make  him  the  more  dangerous.  He  had 
told  her  that  he  was  waiting  for  Eachel  to  come  in ; 
and  at  the  same  time,  in  view  of  the  lateness  of  the 
hour  and  her  being  on  foot,  when  she  herself  should 
take  her  leave  he  would  be  bound  in  decency  to  ac- 
company her.  As  for  remaining  after  Eachel  should 
come  in,  that  was  an  indiscretion  which  scarcely 
seemed  to  her  possible.  Mrs.  Daintry  was  an  Ameri- 
can mother,  and  she  knew  what  the  elder  generation 
owes  to  the  younger.  If  Florimond  had  come  there 
to  call  on  a  young  lady,  he  did  n't,  as  they  used  to 
say,  want  any  mothers  round.  She  glanced  covertly 
at  her  son,  to  try  and  find  some  comfort  in  his  counte- 
nance ;  for  her  perplexity  was  heavy.  But  she  was 
struck  only  with  his  looking  very  handsome,  as  he 
lounged  there  in  the  firelight,  and  with  his  being 
very  much  at  home.  This  did  not  lighten  her  bur- 
den, and  she  expressed  all  the  weight  of  it  —  in  the 
midst  of  Mrs.  Mesh's  flights  of  comparison  —  in  an 
irrelevant  little  sigh.  At  such  a  time  her  only  com- 
fort could  be  the  thought  that  at  all  events  she  had 
not  betrayed  herself  to  Lucretia.  She  had  scarcely 
exchanged  a  word  with  Lucretia  about  Eachel  since 
that  young  lady's  arrival ;  and  she  had  observed  in 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  337 

silence  that  Miss  Daintry  now  had  a  guest  in  the 
person  of  a  young  woman  who  had  lately  opened  a 
kindergarten.  This  reticence  might  surely  pass  for 
natural. 

Eachel  came  in  before  long,  but  even  then  Mrs. 
Daintry  ventured  to  stay  a  little.  The  visitor  from 
Brooklyn  embraced  Mrs.  Mesh,  who  told  her  that, 
prodigal  as  she  was,  there  was  no  fatted  calf  for  her 
return  ;  she  must  content  herself  with  cold  tea.  Noth- 
ing could  be  more  charming  than  her  manner,  which 
was  full  of  native  archness;  and  it  seemed  to  Mrs. 
Daintry  that  she  directed  her  pleasantries  at  Flori- 
mond  with  a  grace  that  was  intended  to  be  irresis- 
tible. The  relation  between  them  was  a  relation  of 
"chaff,"  and  consisted,  on  one  side  and  the  other, 
in  alternations  of  attack  and  defence.  Mrs.  Daintry 
reflected  that  she  should  not  wish  her  son  to  have  a 
wife  who  should  be  perpetually  turning  him  into  a 
joke ;  for  it  seemed  to  her,  perhaps,  that  Rachel  Tor- 
ranee  put  in  her  thrusts  rather  faster  than  Florimond 
could  parry  them.  She  was  evidently  rather  wanting 
in  the  faculty  of  reverence,  and  Florimond  panted  a 
little.  They  presently  went  into  an  adjoining  room, 
where  the  lamplight  was  brighter ;  Rachel  wished  to 
show  the  young  man  an  old  painted  fan,  which  she 
had  brought  back  from  the  repairer's.  They  re- 
mained there  ten  minutes.  Mrs.  Daiutry,  as  she  sat 
with  Mrs.  Mesh,  heard  their  voices  much  inter- 
mingled. She  wished  very  much  to  confide  herself 
a  little  to  Pauline, —  to  ask  her  whether  she  thought 

22 


338  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

Rachel  was  in  love  with.  Florimond.  But  she  had 
a  foreboding  that  this  would  not  be  safe;  Pauline 
was  capable  of  repeating  her  question  to  the  others, 
of  calling  out  to  Eachel  to  come  back  and  answer  it. 
She  contented  herself,  therefore,  with  asking  her  host- 
ess about  the  little  Meshes,  and  regaling  her  with 
anecdotes  of  Joanna's  progeny. 

"Don't  you  ever  have  your. little  ones  with  you  at 
this  hour  ? "  she  inquired.  "  You  know  this  is  what 
Longfellow  calls  the  children's  hour. " 

Mrs.  Mesh  hesitated  a  moment.  "  Well,  you  know, 
one  can't  have  everything  at  once.  I  have  my  social 
duties  now ;  I  have  my  guests.  I  have  Miss  Tor- 
ranee,  —  you  see  she  is  not  a  person  one  can  over- 
look." 

"  I  suppose  not,"  said  poor  Mrs.  Daintry,  remem- 
bering how  little  she  herself  had  overlooked  her. 

"Have  you  done  brandishing  that  superannuated 
relic?"  Mrs.  Mesh  asked  of  Rachel  and  Florimond, 
as  they  returned  to  the  fireside.  "  I  should  as  soon 
think  of  fanning  myself  with  the  fire-shovel ! " 

"He  has  broken  my  heart,"  Rachel  said.  "He 
tells  me  it  is  not  a  Watteau." 

"  Do  you  believe  everything  he  tells  you,  my  dear  ? 
His  word  is  the  word  of  the  betrayer." 

"  Well,  I  know  Watteau  did  n't  paint  fans,"  Flori- 
inond  remarked,  "any  more  than  Michael  Angelo." 

"I  suppose  you  think  he  painted  ceilings,"  said 
Rachel  Torrance.  "I  have  painted  a  great  many 
myself." 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  339 

"  A  great  many  ceilings  ?  I  should  like  to  see 
that ! "  Florimond  exclaimed. 

Eachel  Torrance,  with  her  usual  promptness,  ad- 
opted this  fantasy.  "Yes,  I  have  decorated  half 
the  churches  in  Brooklyn;  you  know  how  many 
there  are." 

"  If  you  mean  fans,  I  wish  men  carried  them,"  the 
young  man  went  on ;  "I  should  like  to  have  one  de 
votre  fagon" 

"  You  're  cool  enough  as  you  are ;  I  should  be  sorry 
to  give  you  anything  that  would  make  you  cooler ! " 

This  retort,  which  may  not  strike  the  reader  by  its 
originality,  was  pregnant  enough  for  Mrs.  Daintry ; 
it  seemed  to  her  to  denote  that  the  situation  was  criti- 
cal ;  and  she  proposed  to  retire.  Florimond  walked 
home  with  her ;  but  it  was  only  as  they  reached  their 
door  that  she  ventured  to  say  to  him  what  had  been 
on  her  tongue's  end  since  they  left  Arlington  Street. 

"Florimond,  I  want  to  ask  you  something.  I 
think  it  is  important,  and  you  must  n't  be  surprised. 
Are  you  in  love  with  Kachel  Torrance  ? " 

Florimond  stared,  in  the  light  of  the  street-lamp. 
The  collar  of  his  overcoat  was  turned  up ;  he  stamped 
a  little  as  he  stood  still ;  the  breath  of  the  February 
evening  pervaded  the  empty  vistas  of  the  "new 
land."  "In  love  with  Rachel  Torrance?  Jamais 
de  la  vie  !  What  put  that  into  your  head  ? " 

"Seeing  you  with  her,  that  way,  this  evening. 
You  know  you  are  very  attentive." 

"  How  do  you  mean,  attentive  ? " 


340  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

"  You  go  there  very  often.  Is  n't  it  almost  every 
day?" 

Florimond  hesitated,  and,  in  spite  of  the  frigid 
dusk,  his  mother  could  see  that  there  was  irritation 
in  his  eye.  "  Where  else  can  I  go,  in  this  precious 
place  ?  It 's  the  pleasantest  house  here." 

"  Yes,  I  suppose  it 's  very  pleasant,"  Mrs.  Daintry 
murmured.  "But  I  would  rather  have  you  return 
to  Paris  than  go  there  too  often,"  she  added,  with 
sudden  energy. 

"  How  do  you  mean,  too  often  ?  Qu'est-ce  qui  vous 
prend,  ma  mere  ? "  said  Florimond. 

"  Is  Eachel  —  Eachel  in  love  with  you  ?  "  she  in- 
quired solemnly.  She  felt  that  this  question,  though 
her  heart  beat  as  she  uttered  it,  should  not  be 
mitigated  by  a  circumlocution. 

"  Good  heavens !  mother,  fancy  talking  about 
love  in  this  temperature ! "  Florimond  exclaimed. 
"Let  one  at  least  get  into  the  house." 

Mrs.  Daintry  followed  him  reluctantly ;  for  she 
always  had  a  feeling  that  if  anything  disagreeable 
were  to  be  done,  one  should  not  make  it  less  drastic 
by  selecting  agreeable  conditions.  In  the  draw- 
ing-room, before  the  fire,  she  returned  to  her  in- 
quiry. "  My  son,  you  have  not  answered  me  about 
Eachel." 

"  Is  she  in  love  with  me  ?     Why,  very  possibly ! " 

"  Are  you  serious,  Florimond  ? " 

"  Why  should  n't  I  be  ?  I  have  seen  the  way 
women  go  off." 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  341 

Mrs.  Daintry  was  silent  a  moment.  "  Florimond, 
is  it  true?"  she  said,  presently. 

"  Is  what  true  ?  I  don't  see  where  you  want  to 
come  out  ? " 

"  Is  it  true  that  that  girl  has  fixed  her  affections  —  " 
and  Mrs.  Daintry's  voice  dropped. 

"  Upon  me,  ma  mire  ?  I  don't  say  it 's  true,  but 
I  say  it 's  possible.  You  ask  me,  and  I  can  only 
answer  you.  I  am  not  swaggering,  I  am  simply 
giving  you  decent  satisfaction.  You  would  n't  have 
me  think  it  impossible  that  a  woman  should  fall  in 
love  with  me  ?  You  know  what  women  are,  and 
how  there  is  nothing,  in  that  way,  too  queer  for 
them  to  do." 

Mrs.  Daintry,  in  spite  of  the  knowledge  of  her  sex 
that  she  might  be  supposed  to  possess,  was  not  pre- 
pared to  rank  herself  on  the  side  of  this  axiom.  "  I 
wished  to  warn  you,"  she  simply  said;  "do  be 
very  careful." 

"Yes,  I'll  be  careful;  but  I  can't  give  up  the 
house." 

"  There  are  other  houses,  Florimond." 

"Yes,  but  there  is  a  special  charm  there." 

"I  would  rather  you  should  return  to  Paris  than 
do  any  harm." 

"  Oh,  I  sha'  n't  do  any  harm ;  don't  worry,  ma 
m&re,"  said  Florimond. 

It  was  a  relief  to  Mrs.  Daintry  to  have  spoken, 
and  she  endeavored  not  to  worry.  It  was  doubtless 
this  effort  that,  for  the  rest  of  the  winter,  gave  .her 


342  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

a  somewhat  rigid,  anxious  look.  People  who  met 
her  in  Beacon  Street  missed  something  from  her 
face.  It  was  her  usual  confidence  in  the  clearness 
of  human  duty ;  and  some  of  her  friends  explained 
the  change  by  saying  that  she  was  disappointed 
about  Florimond,  —  she  was  afraid  he  was  not 
particularly  liked. 


VII. 


BY  the  first  of  March  this  young  man  had  received 
a  good  many  optical  impressions,  and  had  noted  in 
water-colors  several  characteristic  winter  effects.  He 
had  perambulated  Boston  in  every  direction,  he  had 
even  extended  his  researches  to  the  suburbs  ;  and  if 
his  eye  had  been  curious,  his  eye  was  now  almost 
satisfied.  He  perceived  that  even  amid  the  simple 
civilization  of  New  England  there  was  material  for 
the  naturalist ;  and  in  Washington  Street  of  a  win- 
ter's afternoon,  it  came  home  to  him  that  it  was  a 
fortunate  thing  the  impressionist  was  not  exclusively 
preoccupied  with  the  beautiful.  He  became  familiar 
with  the  slushy  streets,  crowded  with  thronging 
pedestrians  and  obstructed  horse-cars,  bordered  with 
strange,  promiscuous  shops,  which  seemed  at  once 
violent  and  indifferent,  overhung  with  snowbanks 
from  the  housetops ;  the  avalanche  that  detached 
itself  at  intervals,  fell  with  an  enormous  thud  amid 
the  dense  processions  of  women,  made  for  a  moment 


A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER.  343 

a  clear  space,  splashed  with  whiter  snow,  on  the 
pavement,  and  contributed  to  the  gayety  of  the  Puri- 
tan capital.  Supreme  in  the  thoroughfare  was  the 
rigid  groove  of  the  railway,  where  oblong  receptacles, 
of  fabulous  capacity,  governed  by  familiar  citizens, 
jolted  and  jingled  eternally,  close  on  each  other's 
rear,  absorbing  and  emitting  innumerable  specimens 
of  a  single  type.  The  road  on  either  side,  buried  in 
mounds  of  pulverized,  mud-colored  ice,  was  ploughed 
across  by  laboring  vehicles,  and  traversed  periodi- 
cally by  the  sisterhood  of  "  shoppers,"  laden  with 
satchels  and  parcels,  and  protected  by  a  round-backed 
policeman.  Florimond  looked  at  the  shops,  saw  the 
women  disgorged,  surging,  ebbing,  dodged  the  aval- 
anches, squeezed  in  and  out  of  the  horse-cars,  made 
himself,  on  their  little  platforms,  where  flatness  was 
enforced,  as  perpendicular  as  possible.  The  horses 
steamed  in  the  sunny  air,  the  conductor  punched  the 
tickets  and  poked  the  passengers,  some  of  whom  were 
under  and  some  above,  and  all  alike  stabled  in 
trampled  straw.  They  were  precipitated,  collec- 
tively, by  stoppages  and  starts ;  the  tight,  silent 
interior  stuffed  itself  more  and  more,  and  the  whole 
machine  heaved  and  reeled  in  its  interrupted  course. 
Florimond  had  forgotten  the  look  of  many  things, 
the  details  of  American  publicity ;  in  some  cases,  in- 
deed, he  only  pretended  to  himself  that  he  had  for- 
gotten them,  because  it  helped  to  entertain  him.  The 
houses  —  a  bristling,  jagged  line  of  tails  and  shorts,  a 
particolored  surface,  expressively  commercial  —  were 


344  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

spotted  with  staring  signs,  with  labels  and  pictures, 
with  advertisements  familiar,  colloquial,  vulgar ;  the 
air  was  traversed  with  the  tangle  of  the  telegraph, 
with  festoons  of  bunting,  with  banners  not  of  war? 
with  inexplicable  loops  and  ropes ;  the  shops,  many 
of  them  enormous,  had  heterogeneous  fronts,  with 
queer  juxtapositions  in  the  articles  that  peopled 
them,  an  incompleteness  of  array,  the  stamp  of  the 
latest  modern  ugliness.  They  had  pendent  stuffs  in 
the  doorways,  and  flapping  tickets  outside.  Every 
fifty  yards  there  was  a  "  candy  store  ; "  in  the  inter- 
vals was  the  painted  panel  of  a  chiropodist,  represen- 
ting him  in  his  professional  attitude.  Behind  the 
plates  of  glass,  in  the  hot  interiors,  behind  the  coun- 
ters, were  pale,  familiar,  delicate,  tired  faces  of 
women,  with  polished  hair  and  glazed  complexions. 
Florimond  knew  their  voices ;  he  knew  how  women 
would  speak  when  their  hair  was  "  treated,"  as  they 
said  in  the  studios,  like  that.  But  the  women  that 
passed  through  the  streets  were  the  main  spectacle. 
Florimond  had  forgotten  their  extraordinary  numer- 
osity,  and  the  impression  that  they  produced  of  a 
deluge  of  petticoats.  He  could  see  that  they  were 
perfectly  at  home  on  the  road ;  they  had  an  air  of 
possession,  of  perpetual  equipment,  a  look,  in  the 
eyes,  of  always  meeting  the  gaze  of  crowds,  always 
seeing  people  pass,  noting  things  in  shop-windows, 
and  being  on  the  watch  at  crossings ;  many  of  them 
evidently  passed  most  of  their  time  in  these  condi- 
tions, and  Florimond  wondered  what  sort  of  intdr- 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  345 

ieurs  they  could  have.  He  felt  at  moments  that  he 
was  in  a  city  of  women,  in  a  country  of  women. 
The  same  impression  came  to  him  dans  le  monde,  as 
he  used  to  say,  for  he  made  the  most  incongruous 
application  of  his  little  French  phrases  to  Boston. 
The  talk,  the  social  life,  were  so  completely  in  the 
hands  of  the  ladies,  the  masculine  note  was  so  sub- 
ordinate, that  on  certain  occasions  he  could  have 
believed  himself  (putting  the  brightness  aside)  in  a 
country  stricken  by  a  war,  where  the  men  had  all 
gone  to  the  army,  or  in  a  seaport  half  depopulated  by 
the  absence  of  its  vessels.  This  idea  had  intermis- 
sions ;  for  instance,  when  he  walked  out  to  Cam- 
bridge. In  this  little  excursion  he  often  indulged ; 
he  used  to  go  and  see  one  of  his  college  mates,  who 
was  now  a  tutor  at  Harvard.  He  stretched  away 
across  the  long,  mean  bridge  that  spans  the  mouth 
of  the  Charles,  —  a  mile  of  wooden  piles,  supporting 
a  brick  pavement,  a  roadway  deep  in  mire,  and 
a  rough  timber  fence,  over  which  the  pedestrian 
enjoys  a  view  of  the  frozen  bay,  the  backs  of  many 
new  houses,  and  a  big  brown  marsh.  The  horse-cars 
bore  him  company,  relieved  here  of  the  press  of  the 
streets,  though  not  of  their  internal  congestion,  and 
constituting  the  principal  feature  of  the  wide,  blank 
avenue,  where  the  puddles  lay  large  across  the  bound- 
ing rails.  He  followed  their  direction  through  a 
middle  region,  in  which  the  small  wooden  houses 
had  an  air  of  tent-like  impermanence,  and  the  Feb- 
ruary mornings,  splendid  and  indiscreet,  stared  into 


346  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

bare  windows  and  seemed  to  make  civilization  trans- 
parent.     Further,  the  suburb  remained  wooden,  but 
grew  neat,  and  the  painted  houses   looked   out   on 
the  car-track  with  an  expression  almost  of  superior- 
ity.     At   Harvard,  the   buildings  were   square   and 
fresh;    they  stood  in  a  yard  planted  with  slender 
elms,  which   the   winter   had   reduced   to   spindles ; 
the  town    stretched   away  from  the  horizontal  pal- 
ings of  the  collegiate  precinct,  low,  flat,  and  immense, 
with  vague,  featureless  spaces  and  the  air  of  a  clean 
encampment.    Florimond  remembered  that  when  the 
summer  came  in,  the  whole  place  was  transformed. 
It  was  pervaded   by  verdure  and  dust,  the  slender 
elms    became    profuse,   arching   over,    the  unpaved 
streets,  the  green  shutters  bowed  themselves  before 
the  windows,  the  flowers  and  creeping-plants  bloomed 
in  the  small  gardens,  and  on  the  piazzas,  in  the  gaps 
of  dropped  awnings,  light  dresses  arrested  the  eye. 
At  night,  in  the  warm  darkness,  —  for  Cambridge  is 
not  festooned  with  lamps, — the  bosom  of  nature  would 
seem  to  palpitate,  there  would  be  a  smell  of  earth 
and  vegetation, —  a  smell   more  primitive  than  the 
odor  of  Europe,  —  and  the  air  would  vibrate  with  the 
sound  of  insects.     All  this   was  in  reserve,  if  one 
would  have  patience,  especially  from  March  to  June ; 
but  for  the  present  the  seat  of  the  University  struck 
our  poor  little  critical  Florimond  as  rather  hard  and 
bare.     As  the  winter  went  on,  and  the  days  grew 
longer,  he  knew  that  Mrs.  Daintry  often  believed 
him  to  be  in  Arlington  Street  when  he  was  walking 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  347 

out  to  see  his  friend  the  tutor,  who  had  once  spent 
a  winter  in  Paris  and  who  never  tired  of  talking 
about  it  It  is  to  be  feared  that  he  did  not  undeceive 
her  so  punctually  as  he  might ;  for,  in  the  first  place, 
he  was  at  Mrs.  Mesh's  very  often ;  in  the  second,  he 
failed  to  understand  how  worried  his  mother  was ; 
and  in  the  third,  the  idea  that  he  should  be  thought 
to  have  the  peace  of  mind  of  a  brilliant  girl  in  his 
keeping  was  not  disagreeable  to  him. 

One  day  his  Aunt  Lucre tia  found  him  in  Arlington 
Street ;  it  occurred  to  her  about  the  middle  of  the  win- 
ter that,  considering  she  liked  Eachel  Torrance  so 
much,  she  had  not  been  to  see  her  very  often.  She  had 
little  time  for  such  indulgences ;  but  she  caught  a  mo- 
ment in  its  flight,  and  was  told  at  Mrs.  Mesh's  door 
that  this  lady  had  not  yet  come  in,  but  that  her  com- 
panion was  accessible.  Florimond  was  in  his  custom- 
ary chair  by  the  chimney  corner  (his  aunt  perhaps 
did  not  know  quite  how  customary  it  was),  and 
Rachel,  at  the  piano,  was  regaling  him  with  a  com- 
position of  Schubert.  Florimond,  up  to  this  time, 
had  not  become  very  intimate  with  his  aunt,  who  had 
not,  as  it  were,  given  him  the  key  of  her  house,  and 
in  whom  he  detected  ft  certain  want  of  interest  in 
his  affairs.  He  had  a  limited  sympathy  with  people 
who  were  interested  only  in  their  own,  and  perceived 
that  Miss  Daintry  belonged  to  this  preoccupied  and 
ungraceful  class.  It  seemed  to  him  that  it  would 
have  been  more  becoming  in  her  to  feign  at  least  a 
certain  attention  to  the  professional  and  social  pros- 


348  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

pects  of  the  most  promising  of  her  nephews.  If 
there  was  one  thing  thSt  Florimond  disliked  more 
than  another,  it  was  an  eager  self-absorption ;  and  he 
could  not  see  that  it  was  any  better  for  people  to  im- 
pose their  personality  upon  committees  and  charities 
than  upon  general  society.  He  would  have  modified 
this  judgment  of  his  kinswoman,  with  whom  he  had 
dined  but  once,  if  he  could  have  guessed  with  what 
anxiety  she  watched  for  the  symptoms  of  that  salu- 
tary change  which  she  expected  to  see  wrought  in 
him  by  the  fascinating  independence  of  Rachel  Tor- 
ranee.  If  she  had  dared,  she  would  have  prompted 
the  girl  a  little ;  she  would  have  confided  to  her  this 
secret  desire.  But  the  matter  was  delicate ;  and  Miss 
Daintry  was  shrewd  enough  to  see  that  everything 
must  be  spontaneous.  When  she  paused  at  the 
threshold  of  Mrs.  Mesh's  drawing-room,  looking  from 
one  of  her  young  companions  to  the  other,  she  felt 
a  slight  pang,  for  she  feared  they  were  getting  on 
too  well.  Rachel  was  pouring  sweet  music  into  the 
young  man's  ears,  and  turning  to  look  at  him  over 
her  shoulder  while  she  played ;  and  he  with  his  head 
tipped  back  and  his  eyes  on  the  ceiling  hummed  an 
accompaniment  which  occasionally  became  an  artic- 
ulate remark.  Harmonious  intimacy  was  stamped 
upon  the  scene;  and  poor  Miss  Daintry  was  not 
struck  with  its  being  in  any  degree  salutary.  She 
was  not  reassured  when,  after  ten  minutes,  Florimond 
took  his  departure ;  she  could  see  that  he  was  irrita- 
ted by  the  presence  of  a  third  person;  and  this  was  a 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  349 

proof  that  Eachel  had  not  yet  begun  to  do  her  duty 
by  him.  It  is  possible  that  Vhen  the  two  ladies  were 
left  together,  her  disappointment  would  have  led  her 
to  betray  her  views,  had  not  Eachel  almost  immedi- 
ately said  to  her :  "  My  dear  cousin,  I  am  so  glad  you 
have  come ;  I  might  not  have  seen  you  again.  I  go 
away  in  three  days." 

"  Go  away  ?    Where  do  you  go  to  ? " 

"  Back  to  Brooklyn,"  said  Eachel,  smiling  sweelly. 

"  Why  on  earth  —  I  thought  you  had  come  here  to 
stay  for  six  months  ? " 

"  Oh,  you  know,  six  months  would  be  a  terrible 
visit  for  these  good  people ;  and  of  course  no  time  was 
fixed.  That  would  have  been  very  absurd.  I  have 
been  here  an  immense  time  already.  It  was  to  be  as 
things  should  go." 

"  And  have  n't  they  gone  well  ? " 

"  Oh  yes,  they  have  gone  beautifully." 

"  Then  why  in  the  world  do  you  leave  ?  " 

"Well,  you  know,  I  have  duties  at  home.  My 
mother  coughs  a  good  deal,  and  they  write  me  dismal 
letters." 

"  They  are  ridiculous,  selfish  people.  You  are  going 
home  because  your  mother  coughs  ?  I  don't  believe 
a  word  of  it !  "  Miss  Daintry  cried.  "  You  have  some 
other  reason.  Something  has  happened  here ;  it  has 
become  disagreeable.  Be  so  good  as  to  tell  me  the 
whole  story." 

Eachel  answered  that  there  was  not  any  story  to 
tell,  and  that  her  reason  consisted  entirely  of  consci- 


350  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

entious  scruples  as  to  absenting  herself  so  long  from 
her  domestic  circle.  Miss  Daintry  esteemed  consci- 
entious scruples  when  they  were  well  placed,  but  she 
thought  poorly  on  the  present  occasion  of  those  of 
Mrs.  Mesh's  visitor;  they  interfered  so  much  with  her 
own  sense  of  fitness.  "Has  Florimond  been  making 
love  to  you  ? "  she  suddenly  inquired.  "  You  must  n't 
mind  that  —  beyond  boxing  his  ears." 

Her  question  appeared  to  amuse  Miss  Torrance 
exceedingly ;  and  the  girl,  a  little  inarticulate  with 
her  mirth,  answered  very  positively  that  the  young 
man  had  done  her  no  such  honor. 

"  I  am  very  sorry  to  hear  it,"  said  Lucretia ;  "  I  was 
in  hopes  he  would  give  you  a  chance  to  take  him 
down.  He  needs  it  very  much.  He's  dreadfully 
puffed  up." 

"  He 's  an  amusing  little  man  ! " 

Miss  Daintry  put  on  her  nippers.  "  Don't  tell  me 
it 's  you  that  are  in  love ! " 

"  Oh,  dear  no  !  I  like  big,  serious  men,  not  small, 
Frenchified  gentlemen,  like  Florimond.  Excuse  me 
if  he 's  your  nephew,  but  you  began  it.  Though  I  am 
fond  of  art/'  the  girl  added,  "  I  don't  think  I  am  fond 
of  artists." 

"  Do  you  call  Florimond  an  artist  ? " 

Rachel  Torrance  hesitated  a  little,  smiling.  "  Yes, 
when  he  poses  for  Pauline  Mesh." 

This  rejoinder  for  a  moment  left  Miss  Daintry  in 
visible  perplexity ;  then  a  sudden  light  seemed  to  come 
to  her.  She  flushed  a  little ;  what  she  found  was  more 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  351 

than  she  was  looking  for.  She  thought  of  many  things 
quickly,  and  among  others  she  thought  that  she  had 
accomplished  rather  more  than  she  intended.  "  Have 
you  quarrelled  with  Pauline  ? "  she  said  presently. 

"No,  but  she  is  tired  of  me." 

"  Everything  has  not  gone  well,  then,  and  you  have 
another  reason  for  going  home  than  your  mother's 
cough  ? " 

"  Yes,  if  you  must  know,  Pauline  wants  me  to  go. 
I  didn't  feel  free  to  tell  you  that;  but  since  you 
guess  it  —  "  said  Eachel,  with  her  rancorless  smile. 

"  Has  she  asked  you  to  decamp  ? " 

"  Oh,  dear  no  !  for  what  do  you  take  us  ?  But  she 
absents  herself  from  the  house ;  she  stays  away  all 
day.  I  have  to  play  to  Florimond  to  console  him." 

"  So  you  have  been  fighting  about  him  ? "  Miss 
Daintry  remarked,  perversely. 

"  Ah,  my  dear  cousin,  what  have  you  got  in  your 
head  ?  Fighting  about  sixpence  !  if  you  knew  how 
Florimond  bores  me !  I  play  to  him  to  keep  him 
silent.  I  have  heard  everything  he  has  to  say,  fifty 
times  over ! " 

Miss  Daintry  sank  back  in  her  chair;  she  was 
completely  out  of  her  reckoning.  "  I  think  he  might 
have  made  love  to  you  a  little ! "  she  exclaimed, 
incoherently. 

"  So  do  I !  but  he  did  n't  —  not  a  crumb.  He  is 
afraid  of  me  —  thank  Heaven  ! " 

"  It  is  n't  for  you  he  comes,  then  ? "  Miss  Daintry 
appeared  to  cling  to  her  theory. 


352  A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER. 

"  No,  my  dear  cousin,  it  is  n't ! " 

"  Just  now,  as  lie  sat  there,  one  could  easily  have 
supposed  it.  He  didn't  at  all  like  my  interrup- 
tion." 

"That  was  because  he  was  waiting  for  Pauline 
to  come  in.  He  will  wait  that  way  an  hour.  You 
may  imagine  whether  he  likes  me  for  boring  her 
so  that,  as  I  tell  you,  she  can't  stay  in  the  house. 
I  am  out  myself  as  much  as  possible.  But  there  are 
days  when  I  drop  with  fatigue ;  then  I  must  rest.  I 
can  assure  you  that  it 's  fortunate  that  I  go  so  soon." 

"Is  Pauline  in  love  with  him?"  Miss  Daintry 
asked,  gravely. 

"Not  a  grain.  She  is  the  best  little  woman  in 
the  world." 

"Except  for  being  a  goose.  Why,  then,  does  she 
object  to  your  company  —  after  being  so  enchanted 
with  you?" 

"  Because  even  the  best  little  woman  in  the  world 
must  object  to  something.  She  has  everything  in 
life,  and  nothing  to  complain  of.  Her  children  sleep 
all  day,  and  her  cook  is  a  jewel.  Her  husband 
adores  her,  and  she  is  perfectly  satisfied  with  Mr. 
Mesh.  I  act  on  her  nerves,  and  I  think  she  believes 
I  regard  her .  as  rather  silly  to  care  so  much  for 
Florimond.  Excuse  me  again  ! " 

"  You  contradict  yourself.  She  does  care  for  him, 
then?" 

"  Oh,  as  she  would  care  for  a  new  coupt !  She  likes 
to  have  a  young  man  of  her  own  —  fresh  from  Paris 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  353 

—  quite  to  herself.  She  has  everything  else  —  why 
should  n't  she  have  that  ?  She  thinks  your  nephew 
very  original,  and  he  thinks  her  what  she  is,  —  the 
prettiest  woman  in  Boston,  They  have  an  idea  that 
they  are  making  a  'celebrated  friendship/  —  like 
Horace  Walpole  and  Madame  du  Deffand.  They 
sit  there  face  to  face  —  they  are  as  innocent  as  the 
shovel  and  tongs.  But,  all  the  same,  I  am  in  the 
way,  and  Pauline  is  provoked  that  I  am  not 
jealous." 

Miss  Daintry  got  up  with  energy.  "  She 's  a  vain, 
hollow,  silly  little  creature,  and  you  are  quite  right 
to  go  away ;  you  are  worthy  of  better  company. 
Only  you  will  not  go  back  to  Brooklyn,  in  spite 
of  your  mother's  cough ;  you  will  come  straight 
to  Mount  Vernon  Place." 

Rachel  hesitated  to  agree  to  this.  She  appeared 
to  think  it  was  her  duty  to  quit  Boston  altogether ; 
and  she  gave  as  a  reason  that  she  had  already  re- 
fused other  invitations.  But  Miss  Daintry  had  a 
better  reason  than  this,  —  a  reason  that  glowed  in 
her  indignant  breast.  It  was  she  who  had  been  the 
cause  of  the  girl's  being  drawn  into  this  sorry  adven- 
ture ;  it  was  she  who  should  charge  herself  with  the 
reparation.  The  conversation  I  have  related  took 
place  on  a  Tuesday ;  and  it  was  settled  that  on  the 
Friday  Miss  Torrance  should  take  up  her  abode  for 
the  rest  of  the  winter  under  her  Cousin  Lucretia's 
roof,  This  lady  left  the  house  without  having  seen 
Mrs.  Mesh. 

23 


354  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

On  Thursday  she  had  a  visit  from  her  sister-in-law, 
the  motive  of  which  was  not  long  in  appearing.  All 
winter  Mrs.  Daintry  had  managed  to  keep  silent  on 
the  subject  of  her  doubts  and  fears.  Discretion  and 
dignity  recommended  this  course ;  and  the  topic  was 
a  painful  one  to  discuss  with  Lucretia,  for  the  bruises 
of  their  primary  interview  still  occasionally  throbbed. 
But  at  the  first  sign  of  alleviation  the  excellent 
woman  overflowed,  and  she  lost  no  time  in  announ- 
cing to  Lucretia,  as  a  Heaven-sent  piece  of  news,  that 
Eachel  had  been  called  away  by  the  illness  of  poor 
Mrs.  Torrance,  and  was  to  leave  Boston  from  one  day 
to  the  other.  Florirnond  had  given  her  this  infor- 
mation the  evening  before ;  and  it  had  made  her  so 
happy,  that  she  could  n't  help  coining  to  let  Lucretia 
know  that  they  were  safe.  Lucretia  listened  to  her 
announcement  in  silence,  fixing  her  eyes  on  her 
sister-in-law  with  an  expression  that  the  latter 
thought  singular ;  but  when  Mrs.  Daintry,  expanding 
still  further,  went  on  to  say  that  she  had  spent  a 
winter  of  misery,  that  the  harm  the  two  together 
(she  and  Lucretia)  might  have  done  was  never  out 
of  her  mind,  for  Florimond's  assiduity  in  Arlington 
Street  had  become  notorious,  and  she  had  been  told 
that  the  most  cruel  things  were  said,  —  when  Mrs. 
Daintry,  expressing  herself  to  this  effect,  added  that 
from  the  present  moment  she  breathed,  the  danger 
was  over,  the  sky  was  clear,  and  her  conscience 
might  take  a  holiday,  —  her  hostess  broke  into  the 
most  prolonged,  the  most  characteristic,  and  most 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  355 

bewildering  fit  of  laughter  in  which  she  had  ever 
known  her  to  indulge.  They  were  safe,  Mrs.  Daintry 
had  said  ?  For  Lucretia  this  was  true,  now,  of  her- 
self, at  least ;  she  was  secure  from  the  dangers  of  her 
irritation;  her  sense  of  the  whole  affair  had  turned 
to  hilarious  music.  The  contrast  that  rose  before 
her  between  her  visitor's  anxieties  and  the  real  posi- 
tion of  the  parties,  her  quick  vision  of  poor  Susan's 
dismay  in  case  that  reality  should  meet  her  eyes, 
among  the  fragments  of  her  squandered  scruples, 

—  these  things  smote  the  chords  of  mirth  in  Miss 
Daintry's  spirit,  and  seemed  to   her  in  their  high 
comicality  to  offer  a  sufficient  reason  for  everything 
that  had  happened.     The  picture  of  her  sister-in-law 
sitting  all  winter  with  her  hands  clasped  and  her 
eyes  fixed  on  the  wrong  object  was  an  image  that 
would  abide  with  her  always ;  and  it  would  render 
her  an  inestimable  service,  —  it  would  cure  her  of 
the  tendency  to  worry.     As  may  be  imagined,  it  was 
eminently  open  to  Mrs.  Daintry  to  ask  her  what  on 
earth  she  was  laughing  at ;  and  there  was  a  color  in 
the  cheek  of  Florimond's  mother  that  brought  her 
back  to  propriety.      She  suddenly  kissed  this  lady 
very  tenderly  —  to  the  latter's  great  surprise,  there 
having  been  no  kissing  since  her  visit  in  November 

—  and  told  her  that  she  would  reveal  to  her  some 
day,  later,  the  cause  of  so  much  merriment.      She 
added   that   Miss   Torrance   was    leaving   Arlington 
Street,  yes ;  but  only  to  go  as  far  as  Mount  Vernon 
Place.     She  was  engaged  to  spend  three  months  in 


356  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

that  very  house.  Mrs.  Daintry's  countenance,  at 
this,  fell  several  inches,  and  her  joy  appeared  com- 
pletely to  desert  her.  She  gave  her  sister-in-law  a 
glance  of  ineffable  reproach,  and  in  a  moment  she 
exclaimed  :  "  Then  nothing  is  gained  !  it  will  all  go 
on  here!" 

"Nothing  will  go  on  here.  If  you  mean  that 
Floriniond  will  pursue  the  young  lady  into  this 
mountain  fastness,  you  may  simply  be  quiet.  He 
is  not  fond  enough  of  me  to  wear  out  my  threshold." 

"  Are  you  very  sure  ? "  Mrs.  Daintry  murmured, 
dubiously. 

"  I  know  what  I  say.  Has  n't  he  told  you  he 
hates  me  ? " 

Mrs.  Daintry  colored  again,  and  hesitated.  "  I  don't 
know  how  you  think  we  talk,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  he  does,  and  he  will  leave  us  alone." 

Mrs.  Daintry  sprang  up  with  an  elasticity  that 
was  comical.  "  That 's  all  I  ask  ! "  she  exclaimed. 

"  I  believe  you  hate  me  too  ! "  Lucretia  said,  laugh- 
ing; but  at  any  risk,  she  kissed  her  sister-in-law 
again  before  they  separated. 

Three  weeks  later  Mrs.  Daintry  paid  her  another 
visit ;  and  this  time  she  looked  very  serious.  "  It 's 
very  strange.  I  don't  know  what  to  think.  But 
perhaps  you  know  it  already  ? "  This  was  her  entree 
en  mati&re,  as  the  French  say.  "Eachel's  leaving 
Arlington  Street  has  made  no  difference.  He  goes 
there  as  much  as  ever.  I  see  no  change  at  all.  Lu- 
cretia, I  have  not  the  peace  that  I  thought  had 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.  357 

come,"  said  poor  Mrs.  Daintry,  whose  voice  had 
failed  below  her  breath. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  he  goes  to  see  Pauline 
Mesh?" 

"I'm  afraid  so,  every  day." 

"  Well,  my  dear,  what 's  the  harm  ? "  Miss  Daintry 
asked.  "  He  can 't  hurt  her  by  not  marrying  her." 

Mrs.  Daintry  stared ;  she  was  amazed  at  her  sister- 
in-law's  tone.  "  But  it  makes  one  suppose  that  all 
winter,  for  so  many  weeks,  it  has  been  for  her  that 
he  has  gone ! "  and  the  image  of  the  tete-db-tete  in 
which  she  had  found  them  immured  that  day,  rose 
again  before  her;  she  could  interpret  it  now. 

"  You  wanted  some  one ;  why  may  not  Pauline 
have  served  ? " 

Mrs.  Daintry  was  silent,  with  the  same  expanded 
eyes.  "  Lucretia,  it  is  not  right !  " 

"My  dear  Susan,  you  are  touching,"  Lucretia 
said. 

Mrs.  Daintry  went  on  without  heeding  her.  "  It 
appears  that  people  are  talking  about  it ;  they  have 
noticed  it  for  ever  so  long.  Joanna  never  hears  any- 
thing, or  she  would  have  told  me.  The  children  are 
too  much.  I  have  been  the  last  to  know." 

"  I  knew  it  a  month  ago,"  said  Miss  Daintry, 
smiling. 

"  And  you  never  told  me  ? " 

"  I  knew  that  you  wanted  to  detain  him.  Paul- 
ine will  detain  him  a  year." 

Mrs.  Daintry  gathered  herself  together.      "Not  a 


358  A  NEW  ENGLAND    WINTER. 

day,  not  an  hour,  that  I  can  help !  He  shall  go,  if 
I  have  to  take  him." 

"  My  dear  Susan,"  murmured  her  sister-in-law  on 
the  threshold.  Miss  Daintry  scarcely  knew  what  to 
say;  she  was  almost  frightened  at  the  rigidity  of 
her  face. 

"  My  dear  Lucretia,  it  is  not  right ! "  This  ejacu- 
lation she  solemnly  repeated,  and  she  took  her 
departure  as  if  she  were  decided  upon  action. 

She  had  found  so  little  sympathy  in  her  sister- 
in-law,  that  she  made  no  answer  to  a  note  Miss 
Daintry  wrote  her  that  evening,  to  remark  that  she 
was  really  unjust  to  Pauline,  who  was  silly,  vain, 
and  flattered  by  the  development  of  her  ability  to 
monopolize  an  impressionist,  but  a  perfectly  inno- 
cent little  woman  and  incapable  of  a  serious  flirta- 
tion. Miss  Daintry  had  been  careful  to  add  to 
these  last  words  no  comment  that  could  possibly 
shock  Florimond's  mother.  Mrs.  Daintry  announced, 
about  the  10th  of  April,  that  she  had  made  up  her 
mind  she  needed  a  change,  and  had  determined  to  go 
abroad  for  the  summer ;  and  she  looked  so  tired  that 
people  could  see  there  was  reason  in  it.  Her  summer 
began  early ;  she  embarked  on  the  20th  of  the  month, 
accompanied  by  Florimond.  Miss  Daintry,  who  had 
not  been  obliged  to  dismiss  the  young  lady  of  the 
kindergarten  to  make  room  for  Eachel  Torrance, 
never  knew  what  had  passed  between  the  mother 
and  the  son,  and  she  was  disappointed  at  Mrs.  Mesh's 
coolness  in  the  face  of  this  catastrophe.  She  dis- 


A  NEW  ENGLAND   WINTER.    •  359 

approved  of  her  flirtation  with  Florimond,  and  yet 
she  was  vexed  at  Pauline's  pert  resignation ;  it  proved 
her  to  be  so  superficial.  She  disposed  of  everything 
with  her  absurd  little  phrases,  that  were  half  slang 
and  half  quotation.  Mrs.  Daintry  was  a  native  of 
Salem,  and  this  gave  Pauline,  as  a  Baltimorean  and  a 
descendant  of  the  Cavaliers,  an  obvious  opportunity. 
Rachel  repeated  her  words  to  Miss  Daintry,  for  she 
had  spoken  to  Rachel  of  Florimond's  departure,  the 
day  after  he  embarked.  "  Oh  yes,  he 's  in  the  midst 
of  the  foam,  the  cruel,  crawling  foam  !  I  '  kind  of ' 
miss  him,  afternoons;  he  was  so  useful  round  the 
fire.  It 's  his  mother  that  charmed  him  away  ;  she 's 
a  most  uncanny  old  party.  I  don't  care  for  Salem 
witches,  anyway ;  she  has  worked  on  him  with 
philters  and  spells  ! "  Lucretia  was  obliged  to  rec- 
ognize a  grain  of  truth  in  this  last  assertion ;  she 
felt  that  her  sister-in-law  must  indeed  have  worked 
upon  Florimond,  and  she  smiled  to  think  that  the 
conscientious  Susan  should  have  descended,  in  the 
last  resort,  to  an  artifice,  to  a  pretext.  She  had 
probably  persuaded  him  she  was  tired  of  Joanna's 
children. 


l 


m 


Jfl 


